Electrolyte Mind
by piranabo
Summary: High school AU The first time Tony Stark talks to Bruce Banner is the same day Bruce Banner first tries to kill himself. Tony Stark doesn't realize he is the reason that Bruce fails. Bruce doesn't realize he repays the favor three years later. pairing(s): Bruce Banner/Tony Stark; slash; genre: (mix of) humor/angst/romance
1. Polished Sides

**Title:** Electrolyte Mind

**Author:** piranabo

**Rating:** M

**Pairings/Characters:** Bruce Banner/Tony Stark, most Avengers characters

**Warning(s):** language; mentions of suicide and self-harm;

**Summary:** (High school AU) The first time Tony Stark talks to Bruce Banner is the same day Bruce Banner first tries to kill himself. Tony Stark doesn't realize he is the reason that Bruce fails. Bruce doesn't realize he repays the favor three years later.

**Word Count (this chapter): **approx. 2000 words

**A/N: **First chapter is more dark and serious, but the tone switches to something lighter relatively quickly. Also, first chapter is a lot shorter than the others. I am thinking around 3000 words per chapter, on average. Either way, I really loved writing this, and hope you'll enjoy it too!

-**Chapter 1: Polished Sides**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first time Tony Stark talks to Bruce Banner is the same day Bruce Banner first tries to kill himself.

Tony Stark doesn't realize he is the reason that Bruce fails.

Bruce Banner doesn't realize he repays the favor three years later.

It's a party Tony throws freshman year. Tony just moved from California to a new high school in New York, and wants people to like him without him really trying. He's rich; a party happens. Everyone's invited. There are drugs because Tony can afford them, and drinks for the ambience of it. His dad's away at business in a lab fifty miles away.

Fifteen's too young to throw parties, but Tony hit puberty early, and isn't bothered to care. He has the maids set it up. There's enough food for three hundred people, though only a hundred show up. Tony lives in a mansion, and his dad is famous. People want to meet him. Tony obliges them.

Bruce Banner, meanwhile, has the worst day of his life (he keeps track) for no particular reason. It's a week into freshman year, and the day starts off with no food in the mini fridge which is also the only fridge in his mom's three-room apartment. In school, a girl bumps into him by mistake. Bruce yells at her for no reason, and everyone within twenty feet looks at him like he is a sociopath. Bruce agrees with them.

He's on edge unreasonably. Every slam of footsteps on old tile is too loud; every fluorescent light chewing up energy in the ceiling too bright. His new science teacher has a voice like an arthropod, and her passion for the subject is limited by whatever Howard Stark's latest Teacher Edition textbook has on the agenda for the day. She pronounces something wrong, making Bruce's eye twitch. She is talking about human biology, and pronounces 'human' as 'yuman.' It's the dumbest thing. It makes Bruce want to punch something.

He is stabbing his pen into the nook between two of his fingers, and surprises himself by noticing it is bleeding. Bruce asks to go to the nurse. His teacher says 'in a minute,' and writes him a pass after forty-two more. The really strong urge to punch her is back.

Bruce goes into the bathroom and punches his arm instead. A few times, just so it's throbbing worse than his head is. Deep breaths, and he washes his face. A curl of hair gets caught on his eyelash. He pushes it away, and it falls back in his eye. His arm might be bruising. He wisps the strand away.

It slips down, again.

Bruce yells out a groan, and a boy who just walked in turns around promptly, leaving Bruce alone. Bruce sinks into the floor and buries his forehead in his hands. It's too loud, again.

By lunch his first day, Tony has a group of six or so girls begging him to sit with them. Tony likes girls; Boys usually can't stand him.

They're popular girls by how perfectly their eyeliner is put on and the number of lone kids sitting spaced out from each other at a table in the corner staring viciously at them.

Tony asks them to spread word about his party that Friday, and by that Friday, it's all anyone in the freshmen class is talking about.

He's just going to slit his neck with his pocket knife, he decides after lunch. He didn't eat anything. The wrist will take too long, and he doesn't want to give the impression of being some uninformed teenage moron in his death. To Bruce, it's not an ordeal, his suicide. He'll see if they have food in the fridge, eat if they do, be irritated if they don't, then end himself.

The pocket knife was a gift from an old friend of his who's dead now. It has Bruce's initials engraved on it and three different blades. If he was going to die, it would have to be from that knife. Any other just wouldn't feel right. He keeps safe in a velvet baggie always tied to his belt.

The rest of the day goes by slowly. Bruce apologizes to the girl when she stumbles against him again, and even helps her pick up her things. She's still scared of him. Bruce has no reaction to this. He's in a state of total apathy. His pulse is beating metronomic.

Bruce stays at the library, lets himself breathe while in the adult literature section, grabs a book at random, and reads it all before leaving to walk home. It's dark out, or would be. New York is always lit up. Howard Stark's mansion seems brighter than all of them that night. Bruce rubs his neck along the carotid artery he'll cut. The way New York is illuminated makes it look kind of like stars, he thinks at random. The sight was probably beautiful if you didn't grow up with it.

Tony had enough food for everyone, but apparently the only people allowed in Stark mansion are alcoholics because they run out of drinks in roughly an hour. He sighs, melodramatic, and declares himself a brave night who shall venture into the unforgiving night in search of drink. Everyone laughs except for a muscular blond kid with a lightning bolt shirt, who simply wishes Tony the best in his 'valiant quest for mead'. Tony decides to interpret that as a joke.

Bruce is going to leave a note. Probably telling mom to stop buying food for him, and that life got boring if any of the three people who care about him would want to know why. He doesn't see what everyone is so afraid of dying for.

When he's plodding down the street, Bruce sees some kid from either his science or Spanish class on the latest iPhone, laughing as he's walking and texting. The kid strolls past him. Bruce wonders what was so funny.

The kid suddenly stops. Bruce pauses with him.

Tony turns around, having caught a somewhat familiar face from his texting peripheral. He is right. It's Bruce Flag or Banner or Tapestry or who-knows from him science and Spanish classes.

"Oh, hey, Bruce, right?" Bruce turns to him. "Little late to be walking to my party, huh? Tony, from science or Spanish, by the way." Tony extends his hand and Bruce stares at it a minute before taking it.

"Bruce Banner. And I'm afraid I can't make it."

"Why's that? Too good for rich-boy parties where everything is free and the girls all look like they hit puberty at six?"

Bruce laughs, slightly bitter. "No. I have plans, unfortunately."

"Cancel them! I'm getting alcohol. Illegally, also. Don't tell anyone."

Bruce makes a zipping motion over his lips. "I'll take it to my grave." Tonight, actually. "I still can't come, though."

"Right. Did I mention my dad is Howard Stark? In case you have been living under a rock the last week and don't know my full name is Tony Stark."

"I know your dad. His textbooks legally qualify as a form of torture in Korea and select areas of Northern China." Bruce squinted. "Japan, too, but only on the third Tuesday of each month and weekends. Their government's a little wayward."

Tony's eyebrows go up and then he laughs. "Ha! You, Bruce Tapestry, can stay."

"It's Banner."

"They're synonyms, right? Well, Bruce Banner, if you manage to find a surgeon good enough to get that stick out your ass by my next party, do come. I need more people to snark with."

"Try 'snarkmeet-dot-net'. I hear they offer discounts if your family is rich enough to buy their ancestry into slavery."

"Oh. Well, I must get twenty percent off, at least."

Bruce exhales a laugh. "Yeah, do look into that. Well, till then. It was nice meeting you, Tony."

Tony smirks. "Pleasure's all mine, Bruce."

And they nod at each other and walk away in opposite directions.

Bruce goes to his apartment. There were new bullet holes in a door a few floors down. He is glad there aren't any on his, and closes their door, locking it. His mom is sleeping in 'her room' on the living room couch, enjoying the few hours she has between her jobs. Bruce checks the fridge: empty. He writes a note to remind her to buy more food (for just herself) and signs his full name on it with heart over each 'B' because he loves his mom.

He walks into his room and locks the door. The light-bulb is old and flickers from dim to dimmer then back. Bruce sighs. He lies down on his bed and stares at the ceiling for ten minutes, then lazes onto his elbows.

'Show time,' Bruce thinks.

Tony walks back the way he came with a shopping cart full of something really cheap that probably tastes awful because those jerks deserve it for making him _walk_. Even though he volunteered, and most of those jerks are perfectly charming, nice, and B-cups, minimum. On his way there, he sees a little pouch on the sidewalk, and picks it up. He may be rich, but finders keepers, he says.

Bruce wonders if it would be inappropriate to jack off one more time before killing himself. Probably, and he doesn't want to walk down three flights of stairs to the outdoor hose to rinse off afterwards. So Bruce forgoes cumming one last time. It never was that amazing, anyway.

His glasses are off and neat in their case on his nightstand. Bruce's fingers trace the soft bags under his eyes. They drift to the artery in his neck, him closing his eyes and not planning on opening them again, ever.

His pulse is smooth; it's relaxing, peaceful. His shaky ceiling fan squeaks a bit. It doesn't bother him, for once. He's in total bliss. It's the perfect moment to die.

Bruce gropes for the small pouch with his knife, muscles heavy with calm.

He can't feel it.

His eyes open, and he looks.

It isn't there.

Tony Stark, two more hours into the party after his return with new drinks, decides to open the baggie he found. He pulls the drawstring open and takes an object out from it.

It's a knife with polished wood sides and 'B.B.' professionally engraved into the side.

Tony Stark wonders just what the hell 'B.B.' stands for.

* * *

Bruce Banner finishes his freshman year valedictorian. When he gets home, the fridge is stocked with food. Running water is on in his house again. He eats three meals a day and showers, _not_ by a hose, like an absolute boss.

Tony Stark doesn't remember talking to any jerk-off named 'Bruce Banner' before, but when it's announced last day of school that the prick beat him by a hundredth of a point on being valedictorian, he is tempted to do a lot more than talking.

Bruce getting top of their class is absolute shit, Tony thinks, because Tony lost those points in_ gym class_. Not because he wasn't fit or didn't test well, but because he didn't want to change _one day_ with the gay kid who just came out in their class. No offense to gay people, but Tony's dick is reserved especially for the eyes woman suitors only, thank you very much.

But with the shenanigans of the end of the year, Tony forgets about Bruce Banner until school's out, and he's already walking up the stairs of Stark mansion.

Well, first day of sophomore year, Tony decides, Tony Stark is giving Bruce Banner hell. Then an idea strikes him.

Why wait?


	2. Attention to Pacing

**Word Count (this chapter): **approx. 3500

**A/N: **Wow fanfiction-dot-net is not kind to internet speak. The '.3's' you see at the end of the emails are supposed to be hearts. I'd advise reading this chapter at archiveofourown (same title) for better formatting. I had to edit the brief email part a lot to make them readable. Either way, chapter two is here, and the tone has switched, as warned, from angst with some humor to humor with some angst.

Also, Bruce is an internet troll, and Tony is in denial of himself.

Enjoy, and I am going on vacation for the next two weeks, so I'm not sure if I'll have internet connection or time to work on this, so hold on 'till then!

-**Chapter 2:** **Attention to Pacing**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A week after school ends, Bruce is checking his email on a laptop he rehabilitated from the school's trashcan. He actually has a new one, for once.

… Who the hell is Tony Stark?

Dumb question. Tony Stark is Howard Stark's son, a classmate, millionaire, brilliant, flirt. Bruce is really asking who Tony Stark is to him—he can't remember sharing two words with the guy. He reads the email.  
~

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: Shocking New surgery discovered to remove metal sticks from asses_

_Message: __Dear Mr. Bruce Banner,_

_It has come to my attention that I have no idea who the fuck you are. Also, drbb? Really? I could have found your email just by keysmashing! Got it from your lab partner, Pepper Potts, by the way. She stole your phone to check it. Also, you have a flip phone, which is a sin against humanity and not okay._

Tony Stark, Bruce realizes, is also a bit of an asshole. At least he uses proper grammar.

_But that is for another day. I'm sending you this e-mail because, I noticed, you haven't been to ANY of my parties, and most nerds have at least ATTEMPTED going to one of them. So, either I track down whatever house on Maple Go-Fuck-Yourself Drive you live at and tell everyone my school's-finally-done shindig be hosted there, or I see you at Stark manner at 6:00 PM, sharp, this Friday. Do not make me grab that stick out your ass myself—ask any girl from our class. I am quite the rough ass grabber._

This man is threatening him by saying he will invite people over to party at his house which doesn't exist (three room apartments next to hundreds of other three-room apartments isn't a house) and by grabbing his ass. Bruce rubs his temples slightly. He would probably find the email funny if it wasn't coercing him into unwanted human interaction, which was most interaction by Bruce's standards. Bruce doesn't work well with people.

_Oh also BTW this is NOT a threat. It's just a... friendly suggestion with negative consequences if you don't abide. But seriously, come or ELSE I will moderately inconvenience your ass so hard you won't be able to walk for a week. So, that. Till, Friday, Banner._

_|| Tony Stark .3-  
~_

At first, Bruce thinks Tony signed it with a heart, but then sees it is supposed to be a spade. Creative. Bruce smirks, going into the signature settings of his own email.

So Tony isn't planning on dumping pig's blood on the guy, but he has to do something to Bruce. You do not outsmart Tony Stark and get away with it.

_~  
To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __u seem upset._

_.3333 Bruce ||_

~  
Nope. That most certainly was not the sound of Tony being outsmarted since that sound does not exist.

_~  
To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: Dear Bruce_

_Message: __Why did you sign your message with hearts? Ass-grabbing thing was a joke, BTW. I know such a thing must be foreign to your abstract species, but do try to get with the culture._

_ || Tony Stark .3-_

_~  
To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __yu jus strike me as a homosexual. srry!_

_.3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: Dear Bruce_

_Message: __There you go, Bruce! One more 'O' and you'll of spelled 'you'!.!.!_

_ || Tony Stark .3-_

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __My species does not understand the repetitive utilization of the character '!'Perhaps the 'banner' subspecies diverges from that of the illustrious 'stark' by way of linguistics, then?_

_.3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: Tony's 'banner' Observation Log, Day 1_

_Message: __The subspecies appears to be functioning off of a cellular structure akin to that of the primitive homosapien. Since the banner's discovery, it has yet to show any traits differentiating itself from the moderately advanced gorilla, likely as its amino acid structure is more similar to such a beast than our own, though further observation may be necessary for more conclusive results._

_ || Tony Stark .3-_

Bruce smirks. So Mr. Popular speaks Science. Sadly for Tony, Bruce speaks Internet, a much deadlier tongue. He doesn't have anything against Tony Stark (excluding the threatening him into going to a party fiasco), but anyone who tries to out-troll Bruce Banner is on his hit list. Bruce gets up and takes ten minutes to make coffee before replying.

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: Bruce's 'stark' Observation Log, Day 1_

_Message: __dis creture apeers 2 be a homoo._

_.3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __…..DID YOU JUST CALL ME A 'HO' AND A COW?_

_|| Tony Stark .3-_

Bruce spits a sip of coffee onto his chest with an absolutely uncontrollable laugh, gagging a bit and wiping his face with his sleeve. He reads it again and can't stop giggling for a minute. All right, maybe Friday won't be the worst day of his life, he admits, not bothering to respond to Tony.

Two days pass, and it's Friday. Tony Stark has good timing, Bruce thinks, because his fridge just ran out again.

It's Tony's first party with an exclusive guest list. Tony sends out personal invitations to people that aren't too terrible, and a few that are just for drama, ending up with forty-or-so people on his list. They're set to arrive at 6:30 because Tony wants some alone time with Mr. Vale_dick_torian.

Bruce doesn't have particularly nice clothes to wear, so he goes with whatever button-down is the least dirty and black jeans. He attempts coiffing his hair in a mirror to no avail. One stand keeps falling into his eye.

Banner knocks on his door at 5:58 exact. Tony is surprised he showed up on time. He opens it and there's messy-hair, too-small glasses, poor-people-clothes Bruce Banner standing slack-knee'd in his doorway.

"You made it!" Tony says with the biggest, fakest smile he can muster. "I'm so glad." The smile capsizes after a minute of Bruce just standing there, looking at him sideways and analytical. "What?"

After [another] minute, Bruce speaks.

"Oh, you wear a pacemaker?" he says half-minded.

Tony swears time stops for an instant. Bruce loiters, expression on his face bored and informal, like pointing out _that_ is commonplace. Like wrecking four years of a carefully disguised secret is _commonplace_. If Tony Stark didn't have reason to hate Bruce before, he sure as _hell_ does now.

Tony forces a laugh.

"If that's that dry, trolling sense of humor, you are going to have to try a little harder."

Bruce glances at the security camera perched top-left of the door, then points to it.

"That camera. It's tuned like hospital cameras and the ones at the senior center are so it won't screw with pacemakers. I can tell because it has that little grey strip that says 'PM' for PaceMaker Institute under the lens, and I've read Howard Stark biography about three times; he doesn't wear one. Only other permanent resident—"

"Right. Cute. The cameras here are custom made on a system my dad and me designed. Their configuration is something you've probably never even seen before, so I see how you could confuse it for something," Tony says the next word bitterly, "_commonplace_ like a hospital's."

Bruce's eyebrows go up, face still flat. "So if we were to take apart your phone right now, it wouldn't be tuned to someone with metal in their chest?"

"This how you act at all your parties, Banner? Glad you didn't show up before."

"You want me to leave?"

Tony leers to himself. If this Banner kid just made up that pacemaker comment to get himself kicked out, when Tony actually has one, Tony is going to scream. "Of course not, learn take a joke. And it's too hot to be outside; come in already."

Stark mansion is bigger than the pictures on Wikipedia led Bruce to believe. Everything is spaced out, furnished and decorated in a way that screams 'We have way too much money!' and makes Bruce uncomfortable.

"This a private party?" he says when they are the only people in the room.

"For the next thirty minutes, I'm afraid. Misprint on the invitations."

"Invitations? Word on the nerd-circuit is that your parties are open house."

"Dad doesn't like open house anymore. Not since some seniors crashed the last one and, essentially, broke one of my dad's labs. And now, of course, I have to devote four hours, minimum, each day to fixing it," he said. "Wasn't even the engineering lab, either. It was the stupid Physicist Med lab he never even uses."

Bruce looks around again, kicking off his shoes. "A Medical lab? I could probably help with that." He examines the couch before Tony nods, and Bruce takes it as permission to sit. "I'm not bad at science."

"I'm aware, _Mr. Valedictorian_."

"Considering how outrageously easy our classes were this year, that's hardly an accomplishment. And the dean said I was lucky and beat the number-two guy by, like, a tenth a point. "

"Hundredth a point, and yes, you are lucky." Tony was trying really hard to sound friendly.

"You sound like you're about to stab puppies."

Maybe not trying hard enough?

"No dogs at Stark enterprises, I'm afraid, unless they're mechanical. I'm not too keen on things that drool and have hair all over."

"Oh, we're not gonna get along well, then."

Tony laughed and was annoyed by how genuine it felt. "Guess not. Will I have to get a leash?"

"Kinky." Bruce toys with the rim of his glasses. "Not 'till the third date, though."

Tony smirks. "And how would you know what happens on the third date?" he asks. Bruce misses a beat with forming a comeback, and Tony continues. "No offense, but I know every girl in our class, at least vicariously, and none of them have ever mentioned a Bruce Banner."

Bruce looks away. Tony grins, thinking, '_Got him.'_

And just then there is knocking on the door from the assholes at parties who always arrive too early. Tony sighs and goes to answer it with his favorite 'fuck-you' grin.

Throughout the next hour, Tony learns that Bruce can't work a anything with boobs to save his life. So of course Tony proceeds to introduce him to every girl he invited. One of them checks him out and just says 'ew.' Tony starts thinking he might like this girl, when Bruce replies with 'we aren't in Mean Girls; calm down,' and Tony has to cup a hand over his mouth to not laugh.

Tony had told Bruce via email to wear a bathing suit under his clothes since his pool is probably bigger than Bruce's house. By the time they go outside to the outdoor pool, it's dark, and everyone is sugar-high or mildly drunk enough to think skinny-dipping is a _fantastic_ idea (though Tony thinks skinny-dipping is always a fantastic idea, under the influence or not.)

"I don't do 'naked,'" Bruce tells him.

"Come on, everyone else is doing it. Don't you know how peer pressure works?"

"Don't you know nerds aren't affected by peer pressure?" Bruce sits down in one of the designer beach chairs by the water.

"Fine. You can sit there cross-legged in the corner with the other people who have small dicks." The face Bruce makes is hilarious. "What? What other reason would anyone have for passing up pool time with _naked woman_? Or men, if you're into that. "

"Like I said, this isn't Mean Girls, so you have nothing to worry about.(*)"

Tony smiles a bit and starts tossing off his shirt. The pool is lit by mini-lanterns, exotic plants scattered around its perimeter. Tony steps half-behind one of them and yanks down his shorts. He notices Bruce is staring at him (his ass?)

"Like something you see, Banner?"

Bruce smiles. It almost qualifies as a smirk. "Yeah, actually." Well, Tony wasn't expecting that answer—"Incision scars by your left femoral artery."

Any trace of amusement falls from Tony's eyes.

"I had this really sexually messed up girlfriend a few months ago," he tries (lies) to no avail.

"With a kink for heart surgery?"

"A pacemaker isn't heart surgery, Bruce!" he snaps.

Bruce thinks the scene would probably be tad more intense if Tony wasn't completely naked.

"Wow. Chill down," he says. Bruce can't remember the last time _he_ tried to calm _someone else _down. "Was it an accident thing or something? The reason you need a—"

"Blood problem," Tony interrupts, lying again.

"Right. Probably was kinda dickish for me to bring up."

"You really want to apologize?" Bruce nods. "Glasses and shirt off. You're getting stark naked with a Stark."

Bruce stares a minute then shrugs. "Opportunity of a lifetime, I guess."

"You bet your ass it is!"

He strips and stops at his bathing suit.

"What happened to opportunity of a lifetime? And size doesn't matter, Bruce," Tony drawls. Bruce is starting to find this situation slightly ridiculous.

"Piss off. I just don't… naked with total strangers. Starks or not."

"So you're just a voyeur? No shame watching, but joining? No, sir; not for me!"

"Better a voyeur than a cardiophile."

"Watch your tongue," Tony says sharply, then gives up with a sigh. "Fine. Let's just go swimming, already. It's too damn hot."

Bruce starts towards the pool ladder, and Tony grabs his shoulder. "Live a little. The deep end is twelve feet; we're diving."

They dive, Tony showboating for the girls with a front-flip, and Bruce calling him the 'Swan Queen' before plopping himself in.

The pool is fun. Tony doesn't know if he enjoys brushing up against naked girls himself, or watching Bruce blanch in fear and misplacement whenever a girl crosses Bruce's own path. It's the perfect brand of Stark revenge, Tony thinks, and perfectly ironic that Bruce would be terrible at one of the two things Tony was good at.

An hour later, the night chill gets too cold, and everyone is toweling off inside. Bruce shimmies a towel over his hair. "So, all your parties involve borderline orgies in the swimming pool?"

"No, you must be a good luck charm," Tony says, towel over his shoulder, clothed [finally] in shorts and an oversized Hulk T-shirt.

"Nice shirt, by the way." Bruce wipes droplets of his glasses then slides them back on.

Tony glances down at it. "Oh, thanks. My dad's a Captain America stan, so it bugs the ever loving crap out of him whenever I flip my shit for another Marvel hero. And Brice Tanner is a pretty cool guy, minus the whole green-rage monster ordeal."

"More of an Anthony Mark man myself."

"Iron man, good taste." Tony throws his towel on Bruce's head. "Hulk's better though."

Bruce pulls the towel off and folds it and his own neat squares and on the edge of the plastic-covered couch. He starts to say something when a high-pitched buzz comes from Tony's pocket.

"Sorry, my phone. Ringtone is a frequency adults _actually_ can't hear; not the mosquito-pitch bullshit-science marketers try to sell you." Tony looks at his phone. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Oh. Right, well it's midnight, meaning I'm going to have to start herding everyone out now." Tony types a code into his phone. A robotic, British voice sounds throughout the room.

"_Attention guests, Mister Stark has informed me the part has ended, and is now requesting you escort yourselves out and home for the night."_

Bruce lifts a brow.

"His name's JARVIS. Robotic AI I programmed in seventh grade. Still needs some upgrading though, and I need to find a way to code around my dad's filter for it. I told JARVIS to say_ 'freeloaders, get your asses out, ASAP'_ but, I'll take what you can get."

Bruce nods and watches as the partygoers start to leave. Tony goes to hold the door open for them and bid adieus. They leave in sets of four or five, each one centered by a member who's able to walk straight. Designated driver, Bruce guesses, and wonders if it's a rule Tony enforces at his parties.

His wondering is interrupted when some girl Veronica throws a piece of paper at him on her way out. The last of the guests leave as Bruce un-crumples it. There's a phone number written on it.

Tony side-steps back to Bruce and leans over. "Phone number? From which man?"

Bruce scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Right. It's Veronica, I think."

Tony leans over. It's actually her number (Tony would know because he has it, too.)

"Oh, that's not her actually number, bro," he says. Like he's letting Bruce Banner get a taste of confidence.

"Really? Area code's right."

"I have Vay's number. That's not it."

Bruce shrugs and throws it over his shoulder into a trashbinbot (exactly what it sounds like.) "I probably wasn't going to text her anyway. Or at all. My phone doesn't do texting."

Tony sits down on the couch and folds his legs. "Oh yes, your rotten flip-phone, right?"

"The one and only." Bruce takes out said phone.

"Oh Jesus, it's even worse in person," Tony says in mock-horror.

Bruce dials a number, waits, then closes his phone. "Ah, shit."

"Hm?"

"Nothing. My mom's shift probably just ran late again." He stuffs his phone in his pocket, standing up from the couch.

"What does your mom do?"

"Nurse." Bruce's mom is actually a cardiologist. It's one of the reasons he was able to tell Tony's electronics were adjusted for pacemakers; his mom works with patients with them constantly.

"A nurse? And the best phone you can afford is that piece of junk?"

The lights in the room get brighter. "Shut up, Tony!" he says, and it's too harsh to be written off as a joke.

Tony leans back in his couch, plastic cover scrunching and squeaking. Bruce's eye twitches.

"Testy. Did I hit a nerve?" The last comment is pushing it, but Tony wants to push.

Bruce starts towards the door. "Not hard enough." He opens it, hoping fresh air and a walk home will make everything quiet again. "Well, this has been fun, but I really can't stand fluorescent lights, so—"

"Bruce," Tony starts, raising a brow, "we don't use fluorescent lights. All natural, energy-savers here."

Bruce stops and bites his lip. Nothing's calm. "Right. Of course; I'm dumb," he says and takes a deep breath. Bruce waves Tony a half-assed good-bye before stepping out. It's dark outside except for the small red light from Starks' security cameras. Bruce glances at them one last time as he walks out the driveway. He's trying really hard to appear nonchalant.

The second he figures he's out of the camera's view, he starts sprinting. Legs flying, lungs compressing. Bruce worries too much, and he's worried about his mom. Worrying makes his head tight. As he runs, he becomes worried about his breathing and how small his chest feels. He reaches his apartment, reaches past the abandoned door with old bullet holes in it three stories below his, flies up the stairs so quickly, he almost trips, finds his door at slams it open hard. The lights are off.

His hand goes instinctively to where he used to keep a knife of his. It's gone now. He turns on the light.

His mom is fine, asleep on the couch, snoring.

Bruce overreacted. Again.

Tony considers the party ordeal a success despite him not being done helping the maids (robots) clean it up till one, and actually in bed by two. There's a red light from the cameras his dad keeps plastered everywhere in the top corner. It probably wouldn't have bugged him if Banner hadn't made those stupid comments earlier that night. Tony ignores it and closes his eyes.

But he can't ignore it. The red light feels so bright he can see it through his eyelids. He forces the covers off of himself and trudges to it with a groan, then shuts it off.

Darkness lulls him to sleep.

The cameras are a hybrid of regulation hospital-configuration and Stark-creation. Howard originally wasn't going to tell Tony they were fixed for his condition on grounds of how sensitive his son was about the issue, but ended up doing so just to make sure Tony wouldn't shut them off and accidentally reset their tuning. Tony's condition was unique. If the cameras were running normally, it could affect him much quicker than they would a person with a normal pacemaker.

Howard was a good father by telling Tony this.

It's really a shame Tony Stark, tired, groggy and imprudent, never listens to his father.


	3. Game Breaker

**Word Count (this chapter):** approx. 3500

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay! We ended up vacationing an extra week, I got to see my girlfriend for six or so days, which rocked, however, sadly, there was no time to write and very little working internet connection, which I needed to do research to write the end of the chapter.

On the bright side, this chapter was insanely fun to write. Plenty of science bros interaction, now with bonus science, and a few more Avengers and Marvel characters pop in this time around. Like usual, cliff-hanger ending, but I should have the next chapter up soon if all goes well.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

-**Chapter 3: Game-breaker** - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It happens sophomore year.

Tony doesn't even realize it.

He sleeps every day in his room, and his dad is working too hard to bother checking the security cameras. There's no reason to suspect anything is wrong. When Tony starts feeling a slight pinch in his chest when he is running too hard or kissing too much, he dismisses it as paranoia. With what happened to his mom two years ago, a little paranoia is normal, he thinks.

Tony doesn't exercise as much, tones down the 'flirt' part of the 'flirt millionaire brilliant classmate' title, and it goes away.

Or maybe Tony just gets used to it.

* * *

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: Its Bruce_

_Message: __Just clarifying, you're not going to be soliciting me into going to another nude party of yours, right?_

_- Bruce_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: Oh you're alive_

_Message: __Haven't heard from you in a month, Banner. Why the sudden interest?_

_|| Tony Stark 3-_

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __My nerd network says you're throwing another. Just checking in to make sure there won't be any threats to my ass regarding this one._

_- Bruce_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __Oh cute._

_|| Tony Stark 3-_

Tony is actually in no fucking mood for this. He doesn't want some prissy nobody loser Banner snarking at him and pretending like he and Tony even breathe the same air.

And he absolutely isn't thinking this because his chest has been pinching itself all day and he can barely think over the pain.

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __My ass?_

_- Bruce_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __I was mad you got valedictorian, dork. Hence, I invited you to one of my parties to fuck with you. In case you missed the myriad of girls laughing at you behind your back, I was pretty fucking successful._

_|| Tony Stark 3-_

Bruce rereads it, eyebrows high. It's not like he really wanted to talk to Tony—Tony is no one to him—but his mom's been drilling him on getting more human interaction in his day-to-day regimen, and Tony Stark isn't the worst company Bruce has had. He peruses the message again. Maybe Tony was kidding?

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __u ok bro?_

_- Bruce_

_To: drbb; __From: tonystark_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __Internet speech isn't funny. You're not funny, or fun to be around. Ideally, fuck off and never talk to me again._

_|| Tony Stark 3-_

And that is the game-breaker.

_To: tonystark; __From: drbb_

_Subject: New Message_

_Message: __Jesus fuck you are being serious. Yeah, whatever; fuck you too._

_- Bruce_

Tony skims it then shuts his laptop in relief. He just wants to be alone.

Bruce spends the rest of the summer alone.

Sophomore year, Tony comes to school in Calvin Klein sunglasses with golden rims and a doctor's note forged by Jarvis excusing him from any hardcore running when he takes gym next semester. He walks in and the first thing he notices is a tall blond with a queer smile and football jersey that _wasn't_ there last year two lockers over from his.

Steve Rogers, he learns. Fresh from Kentucky, quarterback of the football team, all-American jerk-off. What really settles Tony Stark hating the guy is when Tony's gang of girls crowd around Steve instead of him.

At lunch, they're still chatting him up. It doesn't take a genius, Tony thinks, to tell Steve is as pure as apple pie, giving girls that just want one thing respect like they deserve it or something. It's insane. It leaves Tony avoiding his usual spot in favor of eating outside.

Eating outside is a privilege reserved for the top ten students of each class—the school's idea of encouragement. Only one other kid is abusing it today.

Bruce glances up from pretending to have a lunch to his visitor. He and Tony think the exact same thing:

_'Oh, I know that jackass.'_

Though, on a scale of jackass, Bruce ranks significantly lower than Steve Amurica Rogers, so Tony holds his ground and sits across from him at the picnic table.

"Bruce, right?" he asks. It's bold and with a smirk. Worst case scenario, he drives Bruce out, which will finally give Tony the alone time he needs.

Bruce isn't particularly elated to see Tony, but he isn't some oversensitive girl who's going to cry just because a boy hurt his feelings either. He returns the smirk. "Tony Stark. Long time no see."

"Few months, huh?"

"Has to be."

The passive-aggressive air lingers a second before Tony breaks it. "We didn't exactly end on good terms, though" Tony sighs. He hates being nice, but he hates the idea of sitting with Captain America more. "Sorry."

"Who cares? Not like you have a reputation for being nice, anyway."

Tony smiles with spite. "Runs in the family." He takes out the brown bag his lunch is in. "Well, the men in the family, at least."

The character development slips past Bruce when he notices the bag. "Tony Stark uses bag lunches?"

"They're biodegradable," Tony says, pulling out a lunch made of food they don't sell in the US.

"Yeah, sure. Right."

Tony purses his lips and looks at him. "My dad makes weapons. I think at least one Stark should try to help the world instead of breaking it." He crumples the bag and chucks it into the mulch under a tree.

Bruce raises an eyebrow at the aggressiveness of the throw, but just says, "Got it."

"So where's your lunch? Rotting the Earth away in a trashcan?"

At his five-story mansion in India with all the other things that don't exist, Bruce thinks. "I eat quick."

"Oh, look! My turn to call you a liar. Take half of mine; I hate Indian food anyway."

"Did you say Indian food?" Bruce asks and shamelessly snags the larger half of the entrée. "My absolute favorite."

"Really? Thank god, I'll bring you leftovers. Our chef thinks getting the ingredients actually from India will make me like their food more. I don't, and it doesn't."

You know, Bruce thinks he may have judged Tony too quickly.

"If you want," he replies pretending nonchalance.

"As if you aren't salivating like Niagara falls at the thought." Tony tries a bite of curry-stuffed-or-coated-or-whatever peppers and spits it into his hand. "Jesus, it tastes like Satan."

"You know what Satan tastes like?"

"Definitely. Satan is a woman, and eating woman is one of my specialties," he scrapes the food off his palm into the dirt.

"Just not Indian girls?"

"Never. It tastes like curry down there."

They last three seconds before breaking down laughing.

"You don't hold grudges, do you?" Tony asks once they calm down. "To be nice to me now, you can't."

"I've had nicer people do worse things to me, and you gave me food." Food is important to someone who doesn't get to eat every day, Bruce doesn't add. "And you were probably just on your period or something."

"And what makes you think that I'm not just a jerk?"

"Because you find my internet speak _hilarious_."

"Oh, yes. The approximate four times we talked, I have found you funny."

"I said hilarious."

"Shut up, Banner."

"Don't—" he starts but glances at the door. "Oh."

Tony raises a brow. "Oh?"

"Oh as in if you're still looking to avoid American invasion, you may have to hide in Greenland over by the trees."

Steve Rogers peeks out the door then walks through, even though someone who just started hasn't gotten their grades yet and shouldn't be allowed outside, but Tony figures the douche just charmed his way past the supervisor. His eyes meet Roger's, and Roger smiles a wide, honest smile that is absolutely annoying.

"Aaand, Bruce out," Bruce says and sits up, but Tony reaches across the table and pulls his sleeve.

"You are not leaving me alone with Steve fucking—"

"Tony Stark, right?" Steve asks, accosting him.

"Rogers!" Tony turns around with a smile. "Hi!"

"Smooth," Bruce says.

"Bruce. Shut up."

"Um, I'm not interrupting anything am I?" There is an aura of kindness about Steve that tells Bruce instantly they won't get along. If people are too nice, Bruce feels like shit about himself. Bruce isn't nice. Not usually. Still, while he may be self-deprecating, he has enough esteem left to know when the people around him are just going to make him jealous. But that doesn't mean he'll be rude to the guy, especially when such guy's biceps are as thick as Bruce's neck.

"What could you possibly be interrupting?" says Tony.

"I don't know… " And for the second time that day, Steve sits at Tony's table. He leans forward on it, glimpses from Bruce to Tony. "A romantic get-away?"

Without missing a beat, Bruce throws his hands up. "Oh shit, Stark. He caught us." Tony dully slaps Bruce's face; Bruce dully replies, "Ow."

"Actually not interrupting anything." Tony's cheeks are getting sore from keeping the smile. "Sit down; the more the merrier!"

"Good" Steve scoots an inch closer to Bruce. The way Bruce side-eyes him tells Tony he isn't alone in not liking nice people. "Because I thought maybe you didn't like me? Veronica was saying I kind of 'stole your thunder'?"

"No, Thor is still very much my bro, and you would have to try a lot harder to steal my glamour."

"Ah, Tony," Bruce cuts in, "if you're still trying to convince him we are not on a romantic outing, probably don't use the word 'glamour.'"

Tony and Steve blatantly ignore him.

"Well, I just wanted to formally introduce myself, and I hope we can be friends!" Steve puts his hand out for Tony to shake. Tony stares at it, back to Steve, back to the hand, and then once to Bruce, who nods with a clandestine look, then Tony returns the shake.

"That is certainly something you can try to do,"

Steve leaves, finally, and Tony releases his smile and groans. "I hate nice people!"

"There is no way I can interpret that that isn't an insult to me."

"Then I'll do it for you: it wasn't. It was for_ him_ obviously."

Bruce finishes the rest of the food and gets up to throw it out. After he sits back down, he comments, "So we've raised Steve to Voldemort-status? He-who-must-not-be-named? And Steve seems like an actually good person. It's not fair to dislike him."

"But you don't like him, clearly."

"I'm jealous of him. Doesn't mean I don't like him."

"Jealous? Seriously? You just met him! Is it because he's on the football team? Oh, jesus, you're not one of those nerds who want to be cool, right?"

"I just want to be nice. Temperature isn't even a variable."

"That was a terrible joke and why would you be jealous over someone for that?" Tony asks, and the lunch bell rings. "And you better answer before you leave!"

Tony yells it, but Bruce is already at the door, glancing back and smiling once before going inside. The smile makes Tony late to class because it was eerily sad and similar to the one his mom used to have.

_Used_ to have. She died.

* * *

Lunch with Banner doesn't become a regular thing since Steve drifts from Tony's crowd into his own enough that the only common friend they have is Thor, and it rains every day for two weeks. But Tony does get Banner's cell number via email. He learns Bruce hadn't changed much since they last met other than getting texting on his phone.

_My plan is like a cent per text so we can't talk a lot. And emailing is still quicker than texting._

_-Bruce_

_I am sure for someone with a flip phone and no one to talk to, it is._

_|| Tony 3-_

_Then right after:_

_I didn't mean that to be mean._

_|| Tony 3-_

_I was under the impression we still didn't like each other._

_-Bruce_

_I like you. You are one of the few people I know who understand the arcane art of not talking too much. You are also probably one of the only people I know who know what the word 'arcane' actually means._

_|| Tony 3-_

_Shutting up is esoteric?_

_-Bruce_

_Your grammar is flawless, marry me. And yes it is._

_|| Tony 3-_

_You propose to every literati?_

_-Bruce_

_Jesus, synonyms are like dirty talk to me._

_|| Tony 3-_

_You aren't jacking off to my text messages, right? Because I can call you if you are—lot better results. Texting is the lowest form of communication._

_-Bruce_

_Right below email._

_|| Tony 3-_

_Ha._

_-Bruce_

_Ha._

_-Bruce_

_Ha._

_-Bruce_

_That was funny._

_-Bruce_

_REALLY NOW._

_|| Tony 3-_

_… And, to clarify, I can sort your number under the 'Actual Friends' section of my phone? Which is only two other people, so feel special._

_|| Tony 3-_

_Sure_

_-Bruce_

_Ok._

_-Tony_

Bruce almost misses the signature change, but then he grins at it and doesn't.

* * *

Tony giving him leftovers begins to get awkward when Tony gets creative with where he leaves them. Locker, desk in home room, pockets in his backpack, his _shoe_ once when he changed for gym. After he throws a sneaker at the side of Tony's head, the food starts getting dropped off outside at the start of each lunch. They exchange snarky comments for a minute; Bruce says thanks, and Tony makes a smile even his anti-Indian food joke for the day can't mask.

The social caste system isn't as cruel as movies play it out to be, so Tony doesn't get shit for occasionally wondering outside to eat somewhere quiet for once, and Bruce's friends don't really ask why rich, cool Tony Stark is sitting outside with them.

Bruce does have friends. The change is nice and happens in his 7-person honors History class. Natasha Romonoff and Clint Barton don't know about the special lunch privileges for honor students. Bruce tells them; they start eating outside together. Natasha's humor is even dryer than Bruce's, and Clint has a quirk about him which makes him absolutely birdlike, somehow. When he tells Clint this, Natasha says 'if you're a bird, I'm a bird' to Clint, and though her face is stoic, there is a fondness in her voice that isn't.

Most importantly, Bruce doesn't have an 'incident' the whole first semester. No screaming at freshmen or calling teachers 'cunts' under his breath. The lack of bruises on his arm, for once, makes starting gym his second semester a bit more enjoyable. Tony makes the class a _lot_ more enjoyable.

Gym is last period, Tony's schedule says, and one of those classes he likes no one in other than Bruce and Thor. Mix in Mr. America, Loki Odinson, and Mr. Odinson as their_teacher_, and gym class sucks. Mr Odinson's first order of business is making it very clear that any 'queers' will have to transfer out because he doesn't want his son becoming 'contaminated.'

Now, not having to worry about male suitors is always fun, but homophobia is annoying and reminds Tony of his father, so the millionaire says: "Oh, darn! Well, me and Bruce are out. Thor, coming?"

The look on Mr. Odin's face when Bruce sticks his nose up and, very gayly, grabs Tony's hand with two fingers to strut halfway out the room with him is perfect. Steve mimicking the same with Thor afterwards, Loki face-palming like he was made for it, is just gravy.

Neither Bruce nor Tony are upset to get detention, nor really dislike it since Tony spends the whole time rewiring Bruce's phone so the phone company wouldn't charge him anymore. Bruce asks for Natasha and Clint's number after that, somehow gets Thor's, and he and Tony start spamming each other messages obsessively.

It's in one of those text messages that Bruce is invited to Stark manor for the second time.

_Question: scientifically, how screwed would you be to try to replicate Iron Man's suit?_

_-Tony_

_You want to recreate iron man?_

_-Bruce_

_Not yet. For now, I wanna make a mini-robot action figure that works the same as Anthony's suit does. Maybe better. How fucked am I?_

_-Tony_

_I have an old iron man figure with the anatomy pretty spot on if you're being serious. You could use the sizing as a reference to make your own model, and build up from there. But fair warning: I'm not much of an engineer so if anything spontaneously combusts, don't blame me._

_-Bruce_

_A doll—I would have never thought to use one; that's brilliant! Bring it over my house next chance you get, Bruce._

_-Tony_

_Sure but only if I get second dibs on working on it. I'm a bigger Anthony Mark fan than you anyway, and I need someone to science with._

_-Bruce_

_You just used science as a verb. There is someone other than me who uses science as a verb, hell YES you may help me. But it's going to be pretty technical. Probably boring._

_-Tony_

_How is technical boring?_

_-Bruce_

Tony smiles and shakes his head because what were the odds Banner, of all people, would actually speak science?

_It's not. Be over at seven tomorrow?_

_-Tony_

_Wouldn't miss it._

_-Bruce _

After school, Bruce re-combs his hair once before leaving for Stark manor. The building seems even bigger than last time, and when he rings the doorbell he swears he can hear it echoing.

After a minute, the door is answered, and it isn't by a maid or Tony or that odd chef that insists Tony likes foreign foods. It's opened by Tony Stark's father.

Now, Bruce shouldn't be as surprised as he is that the owner of the house answered the door to their own house, but that logic doesn't stop him from swallowing hard and stammering.

"Mr. Stark, um! Hi. I'm Bruce. Banner, I mean; Bruce Banner. A friend of Tony's. I'm supposed to be coming over right—" Bruce looks at the dollar-store watch on his wrist— "now."

Howard's face looks exhausted, worn and old. He isn't smiling or glowing like when he's on the cover of Science Magazine or the New York Times. His face is a frown and there are dark circles under his eyes that have clearly been there a few days.

"Tony can't see people right now."

"Oh, he can't? I mean, not that that isn't perfectly okay. I can come back later or never. Never is cool too; never is great!"

Mr. Stark laughs but it's humorless. "Calm down. I'm glad Tony has a normal-looking friend. He just isn't home and won't be for a few days."

Bruce thinks for a minute that Tony was just kidding about the whole them being friends thing, and this was all some elaborate scheme to prank him. But that's ridiculous because, as mentioned, their life isn't Mean Girls and no one would ever put that much thought into a joke. No one would put that much thought into Bruce either, he thinks. Bruce looks at Howard.

"So, where is he, then? Tony, I mean. He didn't tell me he was going anywhere."

"It wasn't planned; he didn't blow you off if that's what you're stammering over."

Bruce is glad to hear that Tony didn't ditch him. He really does want to get sciencing with a Stark. And, okay. Maybe Bruce raised Tony's friend level to 'best' in the last weeks, but it wasn't like Tony had a lot of competition. "Oh, so where is he?"

Howard pauses a minute before answering: "The hospital. The machine I built to regulate his heart beat and keep blood flowing through him malfunctioned, so blood flow slowed and stopped in one of his arteries."

Bruce's mom is a nurse. Bruce knows what can happen when blood doesn't circulate right. Fatigue, brain damage, lack of balance, limbs falling off.

Death.

* * *

Tony really hates hospitals. He hates amnesia and too-nice nurses and, mostly, he hates that the same doctor who killed his mom is about to try to fix him.


	4. Mom Quit

**Word Count (this chapter): **approx. 3460

**A/N: **I envision Thor is a modern-day Don Quixote. For those of you who don't know who that is, it is the self-assigned knightly title of the protagonist from the novel Don Quixote. In it, the protagonist is obsessed with literature he has read about chivalrous knights, and from such literature, develops the persona of such a night. Don Quixote rides into the night, intent to be the hero he has convinced himself the world needs.

Of course, Don Quixote gets the ever-loving shit beaten out of him by sane people roughly every chapter as his delusion gets progressively more and more outrageous. Hilarious book I really need to get around to finishing, and you, if you haven't already, need to get starting!

Well, thanks for all the comments and favorites and kudos, everyone! Comments always mean so much to me—in fact, I got the idea for what Bruce's mom does based off of coming up with an answer for a commenter's question.

This fic is about to be drenched in Stanner in about a chapter, so just hold on till then!

Enjoy!

-**Chapter 4: Mom Quit** - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A little paranoia was normal,_ Tony had thought. _Ignore it and it will go away._ Tony was being stupid then, and as the anesthetic starts to take effect he can't help but wonder if mom was the same way with her condition.

"Oh my god, will he be alright?" Bruce asks. It might as well be rhetoric.

"Don't know, but I need to be alone right now. I'll tell you if anything happens."

He ushers Bruce a step from the door and slams. Bruce notices Howard doesn't have any way of telling him what happens. By now, it's early winter. The days are shorter , and Bruce watches the last glimpse of sunlight fall behind the skyscrapers. When he is abandoned by light, it hits him hard.

Tony's probably going to die.

Whoever said hatred was the darkest feeling must have never felt worry before because as Bruce walks home all he can see is black. Black nights and black minds. It sounds like something from Dickinson. Anxiety is an insect, buzzing like fluorescent lights, crawling over his brain like a spider, making him only able to think in metaphors. He stumbles up the stairs to his apartment and falls onto the couch face down in a pillow just like his mom always sleeps.

Bruce really wishes his mom will come home early. Her schedule would never allow it, though. His mom works on staff for a charity organization offering free health care to underprivileged Americans. It's a selfless, beautiful job she loves and doesn't get paid for. For money, she does night shifts bartending.

His mom was supposed to be a great cardio surgeon, but after Bruce was born (illegitimately) she decided to delay the career and continue as a simple nurse. She also felt so guilty for having sex before marriage she took a job helping people. Bruce's mom was religious. She thought she was going to hell for her sins, and the job was her way to make up for them.

It's horrible his mom took a job because she was afraid of going to Hell, but she is doing something she loves and helping people who need it. Whenever Bruce feels upset about his three-room house, he thinks of the skinny, bone-thick kids that aren't supposed to exist in America smiling for probably the first time in months because his mom just saved their daddy.

Of the three rooms in his house, kitchen and dining, living, and bedroom (each floor of the apartment complex has bathroom stalls and two doors from the stairwell, and used to have locker-room-like showers, too, until the owner discovered some addict was trying to grow weed behind the towel bin, and they were closed down), Bruce's mom insisted he take the bedroom after he got too big to share the bed with her. She was anal about him not messing up his 'growing, young boy spine' by sleeping on a couch. Sighing at the memory, Bruce lugs himself off the couch and into his room to sleep.

He should have asked Howard for more information. Bruce doesn't know if Tony will be okay. He barely knows what's wrong with him. Don't you die if blood flow stops? Maybe Howard means something else. Bruce had thought Tony had a regular pacemaker, but Howard made it seem like it was something much more significant. If it is, it could explain why Tony is so sensitive over the issue, and why his scars are by his femoral artery instead of on his chest as in normal pacemaker implants. Bruce just wonders what could have possibly happened to make such a device malfunction so severely.

"Okay, guys," Steve starts, looking from Loki to Thor. "I have good news and bad news." They are gathered in Thor's room after school, Loki laying on the bed and Thor in the beanbag. Steve is standing in front of them, shuffling his feet. Loki looks up.

"Bad news first," Loki says. "So it's less dramatic."

"Okay, that works well considering I didn't actually have good news… Alright." Steve takes a breath in. "I may or may not have, accidentally, by no fault of my own and completely not on purpose, put Tony in the hospital. By mistake."

"Really?" Loki peeks up from the magazine he is reading. "Nice work."

"Brother!" Thor yells. "Establish fairer sympathies forthright! And Steve, most certainly you did not hospitalize Brother Stark?"

Steve rubs the back of his neck. He feels like the absolute biggest jackass in the world, and probably _is_. "Not on purpose! I mean, it was afterschool yesterday at Veronica's pool party, and Tony was on his phone texting someone, so I joked that he was being a computer geek, and then he said 'yeah right' and that he could beat me in something physical, so we decided to race around the block—friendly challenge—and, I mean, I am on the football team, and Stark does, like, nothing physical so I don't expect him to bolt forward like he does, so I start bombing it—"

"Steve. Use periods. When you're. Talking," Loki says slowly. "You're not making any sense, and with me having to translate _Don Quixote_ over here, I don't have time to make sense of what you're spewing."

"Gah!" Steve exclaims, gesturing his hands. "Fine, fine. Me and Tony were racing each other, and I guess he has asthma or something because, like halfway through he just stopped and passed out. Literally, passed out."

"Oh, good. I thought you meant he metaphorically passed out."

"Loki, let me finish! Either way, so Tony just passes out, and I call 911 and then his house to leave a message for Tony's dad. So an eternity later the ambulance comes and oh GOD I messed up!"

"That's a pretty creative way to murder someone, actually. I would have gone with death by shark, though. Much more interesting."

"I didn't kill him! Yeesh, Thor, say _something_ to calm me down!"

Thor stares at the floor, pensive then says, "It is most odd you would challenge Brother Stark to a running event, with consideration to his condition."

"Wait, he actually does have asthma? Jesus Christ, that makes it even worse!"

Loki laughs. "Stark doesn't have asthma. He has this insanely rare heart condition."

"No," Steve starts, really wishing it wasn't true.

"Yeah, it usually isn't _that_ bad, but, like, it's still a heart problem, so I guess running so fast—"

"No, no, no—"

"—With you messed him up—"

"_Jesus, _no_—_"

"—And his heart gave out," Loki finishes.

"No!" Steve throws his arms up in their air first and then over his own face in anguish. "Friggin, hell, why doesn't anyone tell me these things?!"

"Most people don't know. Apparently, it's a sensitive subject or something." Loki flips another page.

Steve collapses on the bed next to him, face down in a pillow. "What have I done?"

"Well, killed Tony, for one thing." Steve pushes himself and deadpans at Loki. "What? You asked a question; I answered."

"Loki—wait. How did you know Tony has that heart thingy? He hates you worse than he hates me. I hate less-hate dibs on it!"

"Don't flatter yourself, and I actually know everything about everyone. For example," Loki points at Thor, "Professor Chivalry sings opera better than he plays a linebacker, and you sometimes where woman's underwear because it's 'comfier.'"

"I do not!" Thor and Steve yell.

"Thor, I'm your brother—um. Was your brother. Past tense." A flash of emotion passes over the Odinsons' faces. Steve suddenly feels intrusive. "Ahem. What I mean is, Steve can deny the truth he want, but you, Thor, I have heart you belting out in the shower, when cooking, cleaning, jogging and pretty much every other activity."

"My operatic abilities are of no concern to you, and even if they are, then it's certainly not your concern to share!"

"Wow, look. Five seconds and me and you are fighting again." Thor shoots Loki a look. "What? I like fighting. It suits us."

Thor starts to say something when Steve groans. "Aren't we supposed to be dealing with the fact that I may have killed one of the richest kids on the face of the Earth? Not whatever bullcrap brotherhood problems you two have going down. We can work that next team meeting."

"A, me and Thor don't have brotherhood problems, and, B, if Tony's dead, he's not on the Earth anymore. Problems solved."

"Loki, stop talking! Okay," Steve decides, standing up from the bed and nodding to himself. "I have a plan! Tony's friends with that Bruce person, right? From gym? I bet he knows what is going on."

"Try again, Dr. America. Thor's friends with Tony, too, and Tony didn't tell him anything." Steve starts to say something when Loki sighs loudly and takes out his phone. "Bruce Banner, right? What do you want me to text him?"

"How in Earth did you get Bruce's number? He doesn't even know you."

"I know everything, remember?" Steve starts to reply but gives up and stops himself. "Okay, sending 'u hav any idea wats wron w tony?' I presume that is how one is expected to text, right? I really only do phone calls myself."

"To questionable persons," Thor adds off-handed. Now Steve feels _very_ intrusive.

"Um, haha, yeah. People text different ways. And thanks." There's a minute of silence, Loki glancing from his phone to Thor, who starts fiddling with his hair, and Steve wishing he was _anyone_ else in the world.

_u hav any idea wats wron w tony?_

_You're lab partners with a popular girl once and suddenly everyone knows your number; before I answer, who is this?_

_- Bruce_

Steve jumps up and leans over Loki's shoulder. Thor pops up to join them. "By certain we are acquaintances of Tony!"

"Yeah, tell him we're Tony's friends."

_two of tony's worst enemies and thor_

"Brother, that hardly seems helpful—"

"_Not_ your brother anymore," Loki snaps. He types the next message hitting the buttons too hard.

_Let's play the how well do I know tony game: you guys are probably steve and maybe loki or … hmm… guess I lose?_

_- Bruce_

_its loki n steve n thor. u kno tony pretty well. u know whats happenin to him?_

_Try asking it again in a full sentence, and I might._

_- Bruce_

_What's happening to Tony, jackass?_

_Progress! no, but I don't know what really went down or what is currently going down, and even if I did, I don't think tony would want me telling you two._

_- Bruce_

_Steve is having a panic attack. Tony had collapsed when they were racing, and now Steve thinks he killed him. Don't play the 'not telling you!' card._

Bruce stops.

_you tell me what happened and I'll tell you what's happening_

_- Bruce_

Loki abridges the story for him, giving Bruce the gist of what had happening. If Tony collapsed because his heart wasn't working right under stress—maybe it couldn't pump blood fast enough to carry oxygen to the brain? –then was it more or less dangerous? It may mean it wasn't a mechanical dysfunction in the device, that Tony's heart was just too weak and they need to make the device stronger.

Or Tony could be dead right now, and Bruce won't know until it's in the papers or the rumour mill at school tomorrow. There is a small fan in Bruce's room. Bruce is suddenly aware of how _loud_ it sounds. He doesn't reply to Loki, and instead lies back in his bed. It's soft, comforting and warm though the blankets aren't very thick. The scream of the fan eventually exhausts him, and he falls asleep.

Two hours later, he wakes up feeling unrested and groggy. Bruce makes coffee, browses stupid things on the internet to make the droning go away. But his fan is still too loud, and if he turns it off, the lights are too bright or that one lock of hair won't stay in place on his forehead. Bruce shuts his laptop. Then his phone buzzes. Bruce slaps his forehead, realizing he probably brought down the wrath of Loki during his nap and—

_Sorry I ditched you. Got a lovely date with a shit doctor and MALE nurse, though._

_- Tony_

The sound of relief, Bruce learns, is his ringtone. His senses regulate and he lets out a gulp of air he didn't want to think he was holding. It's like putting out a fire. Bruce types the next message quickly.

_Your ok! wat happend?_

_- Bruce_

_What happened to my sexy synonym man? And I'm FINE, Rogers just made me race him and I guess my heart thing couldn't take it._

_- Tony_

_Jesus, Tony. If your 'heart thing' couldn't take it, why would you try?_

_- Bruce_

_Because clearly it was my INTENT to pass out! Love being at the hospital they slaughtered my mom in; always a good time._

_- Tony_

…Tony really wishes there is an 'edit – undo' option for sending messages.

_Alright, if I ask you to explain, will you?_

_- Bruce_

Tony glances around the recovery room. The machine in his heart had just needed a little tweaking; the doctor finished it in an hour. Apparently, the machine had malfunctioned for a second due to some electronic interference and his heart beating too fast. His body had passed out from shock.

And then Tony remembers he should probably call his dad. Tony doesn't want to fucking call his fucking dad. He shuffles his iPhone around in his hand. The doctor had adjusted it so it will not affect the new pacemaker's settings (though the term pacemaker is a gross underestimate.) Tony would also have to stay with his dad in some high-end hotel while all the electronics in Stark manor would be reworked. That could take months. Months alone in a small room with just his dad. God, no.

The doctor pops in with a smile and reminds Tony to call his dad whenever Tony feels up for it.

But Tony hates the doctor here, so he doesn't listen to him, and his dad, too, so he doesn't call him. Correction: doesn't _fucking_ call him. Instead, Tony rereads Bruce's message, takes a minute to decide, and types a response.

_My dad had this very skilled doctor taking care of my mom since she had an insanely rare heart condition. Her heart was too small and weak for her body, so every six months or so, she would have to surgically have more heart tissue added, hopefully until her heart was normal. During one of the implants, our doctor fucked up and my mom died on the operating table. My dad wouldn't fire the guy either since he was 'the only one' who knew how to deal with mom's bad genetics. But FUCK that if we were ever letting this jackass doctor do that surgery on anyone again, so my dad designed a device for me with help from his higher-up medical friends so my shit heart can actually circulate blood to my body._

_ - Tony_

_So whenever I have heart issues or the machine does, I have to look my mom's murderer in the fucking face._

_- Tony_

_Fuck, by the way._

_- Tony_

_Jesus Christ, Tony!_

_- Bruce_

_Basically. But, bright side, the doctor works quick when he isn't slaughtering his patients, so I'll be out by tomorrow._

_- Tony_

_But me and my dad have to bunk in some hotel together while all the electronics are rewired in our house. I don't want to stay with my dad, at all! __L :-(_

_- Tony_

_…Did you just frowney-face at me? Seriously? After telling me all THAT you frowney-face?_

_- Bruce_

_L :-( My dad is going to stress me out again. I really can't deal with stress right now or my heart will fuck up and all have to see dr. murder again._

_- Tony_

_That doctor didn't kill your mom. He or she was trying his/her hardest to save her. Her heart condition is what killed her. You can't get revenge on a person, but you can on a condition like that. Like, if you killed the doctor, you wouldn't feel any better, but if you found a cure for whatever killed your mom, you would. Hating people never ends well._

_- Bruce_

_Wow, do go on, Plato._

_- Tony_

_I am trying to be helpful._

_- Bruce_

_I don't want helpful. I want someone I can rant to that will mindlessly agree with me!_

_- Tony_

_Well, ruminating in hatred or stressing won't fix anything. I would know; that is what I always do._

_- Bruce_

_HA. Right. Bruce, you may be sarcastic, but you are the nicest, most low-maintenance person I know. You don't hate hate anyone, not even captain amurica or Loki fucking Odinson, and the idea of seeing you stressed out or raging is kind of hilarious._

_- Tony_

Someone just called Bruce low-maintenance. Bruce actually laughs as he texts a repy.

_Oh my God I am so not low-maintenance, it is insane... But this isn't about me. It's about you._

_- Bruce_

_Okay, fine. I like talking about me. I just can't handle being around my dad right now. He is going to lecture me about the doctor and mom and responsibility and all that glorious crap I HATE, and he is probably going to want to spend time with me like and pretend like he gives a shit if I am healing right and just UGH. I wish I could stay anywhere else._

_- Tony_

Bruce starts to wonder if Tony is hinting at…

_Are you expecting me to let you stay at my house?_

_- Bruce_

_What? No, I was planning on just complaining until I ran out of steam, or you told me to fuck off, actually. Staying at your house would imply me attempting to solve a problem instead of just basking in it._

_- Tony_

_Right. But you can't stay at my house._

_- Bruce_

_I know. I wasn't asking._

_- Tony_

_I mean, we have literally three rooms. The showers are communal and broken half the time. I use a hose._

_- Bruce_

_My dad can pay to have those fixed if I ask. And, seriously. I wasn't implying that. I know you don't like people at your house._

_- Tony_

_Above that, I'd have to sleep on the floor or you would. We don't have a spare couch, and we very rarely have food. It would be a trainwreck._

_- Bruce_

_Bruce?_

_-Tony_

_And my mom would be so insanely awkward if I had a friend stay over and probably embarrass the crap out of both of us_

_- Bruce_

_Okay, now it kind of sounds like you of want me to stay over._

_- Tony_

_No! It would be an absolute disaster!_

_- Bruce_

_Oh, I am so crashing at your place now. You literally walked me right into that!_

_- Tony_

_I didn't literally do anything, and it definitely wasn't leading you since you obviously can't stay here._

_- Bruce_

_I'll pay for everyone's food._

_- Tony_

_WELCOME ABOARD!_

_- Bruce_

"Steve, I don't think staring at my phone is going to make Banner reply any quicker," Loki says, now sitting upside-down in a beanbag next to Thor. Steve is on the bed trying to staring at Loki's phone in an attempt to speed-up time.

"It's been hours! What if Tony is dead and he isn't telling us? Oh my god, I am a murderer!"

"Come on, Steve. Be optimistic: you're _probably_ not a murderer. Yet."

"I hate you, Loki."

"Fair enough," Loki states with a shrug then scoots an inch further from Thor, who had started leaning against him. Steve is about to yell something when there is a beep from Loki's phone. He scrambles to accept the message and reads it.

_Tony's fine. But, he says he wants to have a 'talk' with whoever told you he had heart issues._

_- Bruce_

_OH THANK JESUS… and that would be loki._

_We're cutting school tomorrow. Tell our teachers we're sick? And, as Tony just texted me, tell Loki to 'expect serious shit to go down' when he is back in class._

_- Bruce_

_I AM NOT A MURDERER!, _Steve texts triumphantly.

_You have fun with that Steve._

_- Bruce_

_J :-)_

_WHY THE SMILIE, WHY._

_- Bruce_

Steve is so ecstatic he is jumping off the walls and into the bed, bouncing and laughing. After he is sufficiently filled his quota for acting like a four year old for the day, he tells Loki what Stark said, to which he replies simply and with a smirk: "Sounds fun."


	5. Un-Situational

**Word Count (this chapter): **approx. 3600

**A/N: **I have broken my clavicle in soccer, meaning my right arm has to be in a sling. Typing is a bit slower, and with classes starting and soccer, which I now can't play games or contact practice in, it has been a pretty rough few weeks. Either way, chapter is finally up. It's a lot of Stanner interaction, since next chapter may have a heavy focus on Loki, Thor, and Steve like last chapter did.

Enjoy!

-**Chapter 5: Un-Situational** - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bruce's mom is ecstatic. She actually takes the day off her volunteer work to clean the house (though, cleaning three rooms can only take so long), and her and Bruce go out to eat afterwards. She tells him about her latest patients, about how the department is getting bigger and bigger each day. Bruce listens eagerly. He misses his mom's voice. It is nice to hear it when he does.

Tony is set to arrive at 7:00 PM. Bruce's mom's waitressing shift starts at eight, giving them forty or so minutes to get everything situated. He texts Tony asking if he should wait outside, but Tony says he will knock on the door.

Bruce is nervous. He has been nervous. Tony's going to hate his house. It's poor and run-down and the polar opposite of what Tony's used to. Tony will hate the house then hate Bruce vicariously through it. Or, if not the house, Bruce is sure Tony will hate being around Bruce full-time. Tony hasn't triggered Bruce's anger yet, but once he eventually does... Bruce looks at his mom at the thought. She can't stop fiddling with her hair, wanting to look nice for Tony's father so maybe Tony will actually stay here and enjoy it. 7:00 PM comes and Bruce counts each second Tony is late until his mom puts a hand on his shoulder. He turns around to see her ever-tired face shining with a kind, warm smile.

"Relax, Honey," she says soft like blankets.

Bruce does.

The drive out of the hospital is pure torture. Howard tries to engage Tony in a conversation and brings up the 'M' word. He had the nerve actually fucking bring up Tony's mom, and of course Howard does it just as they're pulling into what looks like the worst apartment complex in New York. Tony manages a sharp insult at his father before the car fully stops. Tony gets out of the car, and slams the door. It's childish, but Tony doesn't care. Childish means he gets to actually pretend he's someone's child, for once.

The scuffle with his dad, though, reminds Tony just how much he owes Bruce for letting him stay here. A week with his dad is out of the question. Tony doesn't care where he stays as long as it isn't with him, and with how poor this joint looks, Tony doubts his father will visit all too much (ever.)

But Howard pretends to care like he usually does. Tony thinks it's just so his dad can sleep better at night. "Tony, this place looks dangerous. That last door had bullet holes in it."

"Well, I'm not staying behind_ that _door, so it shouldn't be a problem," he replies.

They reach Bruce's apartment door, 302, and Tony knocks. His dad has a scrutinizing look that makes Tony really hope Bruce was exaggerating about the three rooms and communal showers. Howard has to like the place or he won't let Tony stay.

There is a brief pause after Tony knocks where Bruce doesn't answer, and Tony is sure Howard is thinking Bruce is some impolite ghetto kid Tony is just hanging out with for pot hook-ups or piss him off. Then Bruce answers the door, looking a little more put-together than usual, hair combed more neatly, no stains on his shirt. Bruce looks up at Howard. Howard actually smiles at him.

What?

"Bruce, hello. It's nice to see you again."

What.

"You also Mr. Stark." Bruce's mom runs up to the door. Tony gets a look at her. She is tall and lanky with brown eyes and tired face like Bruce's. Bruce shuffles aside and his mom steps out. "This would be my mother."

Howard looks at her, and Ms. Banner grins and shakes his hand excitedly. "Hello, yes. I am Bruce's mom, parental guardian officiado of casa de Banner. And you must be Tony's father? It is a pleasure to meet you."

Tony gives her bonus points for not treating his dad like a celebrity like most people do, but Tony can tell Howard thinks she is a little offline.

"You also," Howard says, forcing a smile. "So, um, Mrs. Banner—"

"Oh, it's Ms. Banner. I'm divorced," she says, smile unwavering and wiggling her ring finger.

Howard nods. "Righ, of course. So, my son wanted to stay here while our home was renovated, and—"

"Right, yes. I know all about that." She really needs to stop interrupting Howard, Tony thinks. The annoyed look on Howard's face shows he agrees with him. "Bruce told me that your son will need a place to stay for a few weeks while the electronics in your home are tuned for his condition. Ah, right! I am also a nurse, certified, so I am fully qualified to be watching your son. I could even give him open heart surgery if he needed it, haha! But hopefully he won't—need it, that is!" she says and Tony looks at Bruce, and they exchange a look of how much a disaster this turning out to be. Tony braces for impact, but Howard is silent. "Mr. Stark? Are you alright?"

Howard looks at Tony, something soft and curious in his eyes. Tony raises a brow, confused.

"You told them about your heart?" he asks.

Oh.

Howard is amazed. Tony has never willingly told anyone about his condition. He had lied about it to Howard, to his friends, even to the first string of doctors he had. He still does lie about it. Always. Howard looks at Bruce, wondering what this trashy little kid who basically screams 'outcast' could have possibly done to get Tony to open up like that. His son interrupts his thoughts. Howard had forgotten he'd asked Tony a question.

"Um, yeah. I mean, kind of."

"Kind of?" Bruce asks. "You spilled your life story to me over _text message_."

"It was not my _life_ story!"

"Right."

"Okay, you know what Bruce Tapestry—"

"The place looks lovely," Howard says. Tony and Bruce stop bickering. "I am sure Tony will enjoy his stay here very much." Tony looks at Bruce, dumbfounded. "I will be sending checks for his bills weekly, but this is a little upfront payment for your troubles." He hands her an envelope. "Enclosed is also a list of my phone number, Tony's doctor, emergency contacts and a copy of the doctor's medical report and advice for Tony's recovery weeks: no lifting anything over ten pounds, keep sodium intake low, etc."

Bruce's mom stares at the envelope before taking it. "Alright. I promise to take care of your son, and if I don't, Bruce will, right?" she says, laughing and nudging her son. Bruce smiles awkward and embarrassed, and Tony thinks it looks kind of adorable for a _guy_ smile. "Though, really. I'll keep him safe."

Howard nods. "I'm sure you will."

They all work together lugging a month's worth of suitcases up to the apartment. When they are done, Howard and Ms. Banner shake hands a final time before he leaves and waves them off almost fondly. They drag the suitcases through the door and shut it.

Tony lets out a sigh. "Oh my god, I could have sworn my dad was going to veto this."

"Yeah, well, good thing he didn't," Bruce says. He looks at the clock. "Oh, crap. Mom, it's 7:50."

"Is is?" she says. "Okay, shoot, well I love you Bruce, and you and Tony have a nice time. You two better be asleep by the time I get home or else expect some hardcore parenting, hardcore being disconnecting the internet for a day, of course."

Bruce grins and throws her her coat from the floor as she stumbles out the door, a piece of bread in her mouth for dinner and her waitress garb in a bag to change into in the car. Bruce shuts it again, and he and Tony are alone.

They are quiet for a bit. Bruce strolls back to the couch and sits next to him. "So."

"So," Tony echoes. "You really do only have three rooms."

"Yeap."

"No TV?"

"The twelve free channels our landlord provides everyone."

"Internet?"

"Neighbor's WiFi doesn't have encryption."

"Splendid."

The silence returns. Bruce coughs. "Uh, I kind of did warn you, you know. It's not much of a place. I mean, I think my entire house is the size of your closest."

"Size of my mother's old shoe closet, maybe," Tony replies with a laugh. "Speaking of mom's, yours seems nice. Eccentric, but nice."

"That's what most people say about her. She works hard, though. She can only ever be joking when she's off the clock. Jokes and her… clientele don't really mix. Not the day-time clients, at least."

"Right, right, I get it." A pause. Tony glances at the door. "And I just realized maybe I don't know you that well. Probably should have stayed with my dad a week and just came over here a lot or had you come over. You know, familiarize myself with what you're like out of school, then encroach myself into your home."

Bruce laughs. "Oh, don't tell me you're too _shy_ to be around me."

Tony gasps in fake theatrics. "Why I? Never! Nervous, though? Nervous I could be."

"Alright, Yoda. But still, if you want to get to know me out of school, living with me is a pretty good way to do it."

"Point, though completely ridiculous, taken."

Bruce shrugs. "I'm sure your dad wouldn't mind if you had a change of heart."

"Change of heart? Really, Bruce? You have word it like that after what Mr. Doctor did to me yesterday?" Tony says seriously, and lets the color drain awkwardly from Bruces face before chuckling.

"You blow, Tony," Bruce says.

"Only for you, Sweetheart, and... And I have also never joked about that before. My heart." Tony stops. "Or told anyone willingly."

"Correction." Bruce sticks his pointer finger up and gestures at his chest. "I figured it out my own. Pacemaker, electronics, remember?"

"I meant about my mom and what I really have going on. Pacemaker's the understatement of the year, by the way."

"Yeah, well, it's good to have someone to talk to. Secrets mess you up." With all Bruce is keeping, he knows this well. "If you keep them secret, that is."

"Right. Oh, by the way, do you need me to go food shopping later?" Tony asks. "Your mom doesn't seem like the type with a lot of spare time for groceries."

"Yes, but I'll go with you. It can be an adventure."

"Food shopping?"

"Adventurous food shopping," Bruce corrects. "But, my mom stocked up the fridge before you came, and your dad's check can cover what she spent, so we're good for a few days." Tony nods and Bruce remembers something. "Oh, right! Hey, we never did get down to work on that iron man robot you wanted to make."

Tony's face lights up. "Jesus, you really _are_ excited about that. I thought you were just ebbing me on over the phone."

"You're joking me, right? Science is my_ thing_. Do you have any tools with you? We don't have much here other than forks, knives and baking soda." Bruce realizes how much… poorer his house is than Tony's. There is no way Tony will actually enjoy it here. They'll need to spend a lot of time out of the house, and Bruce doesn't know anything fun to do that doesn't happen in his room or on the internet.

"Mr. Banner, do not underestimate me. Of course I have my tools. Portable lab-to-go, actually," Tony says and ducks away to one of his bags in the corner. He unzips it and tugs out a black tool box. He brings it back to the couch, sits down, sets it on his lap and opens it. "Candyland's top floor at my house, but you can get a nice spoonful of sugar just in here. Check it out and drool, Banner."

Bruce, pushing his doubts away, leans toward him to see it, his arm and thigh pressing against Tony's. "It is beautiful. I am not worthy." The box has an array of small tools—a mini welding torch, screwdrivers, hammers, wires, adapters, blueprint paper. It's a small start, but he and Tony can go shopping later for whatever else they need. "Is there anything on those blueprint papers?"

"As of?" Tony turns to him. Because of the way they are sitting, his face is right in Bruce's, and Tony shuffles back with a 'woah, sorry' and continues after a second, "Not yet. I was waiting to check out that doll you had."

"Action figure," Bruce asserts.

"D-O-double-L, _doll_."

Bruce snorts and sits up. "Fine. But you're the one that wants to robotically recreate said 'doll.'"

"Bruce, please. When I was six, I made my friend Pepper's Cabbage patch shoot laser lights from its eyes."

"Oh, she must have loved you."

Tony pauses. "She used to."

Bruce realizes he hit a nerve. "Sensitive subject, got it. I have mine too. So, um, iron man, it was?"

"Actually, it is pretty dark out. We're skipping school tomorrow, so want to just go to sleep and get a fresh start then?"

The problem with anxiety is the second anything goes out-of-plan, it attacks. Bruce is such an absolute idiot. He's already hosting a _Stark_ in the shittiest ghetto building New York has to offer, and then he manages screws up Science, the one tie of normalcy he could have given Tony in this new home, just like that. Bruce thinks of all the things he should have replied with and feels worse with each one. _She must have loved you. _What was Bruce thinking? The thoughts continue even as he replies, "Sure. There's only one bed here, though."

"Oh, no problem. I may be rich, but I'm not beyond sleeping on a couch. One too many nights at lady's houses made me very versatile, know what I mean?" he adds with a nudge. Bruce doesn't particularly want to know what Tony means, and he doesn't get how Tony could go from being upset to joking just like that. Or maybe he never was upset and Bruce was just being paranoid and ruining everything again.

And he is about to ruin everything even worse. "That won't work. My mom sleeps there. When I said one bed I meant—" Bruce looks away, embarrassment piling on to all thte other emotions he has, "—I mean we only have one bed in the entire house. I'll just sleep on the floor or something," he adds quickly.

Something like sympathy flashes in Tony's eyes, which is just _great_ because now Tony will probably only be his pity friend for the next week, if he even stays here that long. Bruce can manage people not liking him, but pity? Pity is untenable. "Your family really is poor," Tony says.

"I said you shouldn't stay here. Sorry."

Tony waits a minute before smirking. "Well, Food-stamps, it's too bad you're stuck with me. Let's go beg for something to buy a bed with. I'll even let you cut out my eyeballs so we can make better due."

Bruce's mind blanks a minute. "Did you just call me 'Food-stamps'? As a nickname?"

"Would you prefer Slumdogs?"

Bruce's mouth goes from open wide to a toothy smile. "Okay, you know what, _Tax-cuts_, I think you need to remember who you stepped on to get to top, 'kay?"

"Right like Cinderella is in any position to be telling me what to do."

"You're calling me Cinderella? When you're wearing this ugly thing," he says and pokes at Tony's shirt.

"Oh, it is _on _now, Banner."

"Careful—you might break a manicured fingernail!" Bruce says. Tony leers.

"Glasses off, poindexter. We'll fight this out like men."

Bruce takes off his glasses then looks at Tony and asks earnestly, "With a game of chess?" Tony stops for a minute, squints as if deciding something. After a moment, he replies.

"Actually, yes. We will play you take the other person's pieces, you can chuck them at their eye. But, if you're being serious, I do love chess, but no one is ever a challenge. Do you have a board?"

"No, but I have Chess Titans on my computer."

"Technology makes everything better. Let's get to it. Best five out of nine?"

Bruce gets up to get his computer, laughing. "Weren't we supposed to be fighting?"

"Well, now we're not," Tony says simply. Bruce grabs his laptop charger.

"Best of nine will take all night." Not that Bruce is exactly opposed to spending the night with Tony. He grins. "Let's do it."

They set up the computer and sit thigh-to-thigh, pushing the laptop between the two of them each move. Bruce wins the first two. Then Tony one, Bruce two, Tony two, a stalemate, then Tony wins the next two, leaving Bruce in the dust. They end up playing eleven games, and by the time they are done, it's light out, and if it wasn't for their minds racing, they would have been aware of how tired they are hours ago. Tony basks in victory and exhaustion with a stretch and eats the last of the Doritos they'd gotten out last game. Bruce moves the laptop off them.

"I cannot believe we just played chess for nine hours," he says and picks up his glasses. "I need sleep."

"Yeah. Hey, since your mom isn't here, could one of us crash on the couch?" Tony asks, then realizes something. "Wait, is your mom supposed to be gone so long? It's, like, 5 am already."

"She works long night shifts. Sometimes she goes right from the bar back to the volunteer stands."

"Not much time for rest, then."

"It's hereditary," Bruce says. Tony's face flattens.

"Oh har-har. So—" he yawns "—Jesus I am tired. So, can we sleep now or what? And any vague change there was of me actually going to school today is gone now, so, no worries."

"Yeah. Come on, I'll show you to the bedroom." Bruce gets up and reaches a hand out for Tony to grab. Tony takes it, and Bruce leads him the approximate fifteen steps left to the bedroom door.

"Thanks." Tony lets go of his hand. "I might have gotten lost in one of the tortuous three rooms here."

"They can be quite daunting," Bruce manages before seeing the allure of his bed. Its covers are made—mom's idea—with a fresh blanket and newly washed sheet. It takes all his self-restraint not to pounce into them. "So, you want the bed, right?" It's terrible, but the selfish part of him he needs to beat up his arm to get rid of really hopes Tony will say 'no.'

"Doc said I need proper bed rest. All-nighter chess games don't really qualify."

"Right. So I'll crash on the floor. You mind letting me have the pillow or does your chest need to be kind of elevated?"

Tony bites his lip. "I feel like a jerk—that's a first, ha—but I really am supposed to have support on my upper body. I might have some extra pillows or blankets. Dad had just wanted me to pack clothes in case he didn't approve of here. You could take the blanket while I look for another pillow."

"Don't bother looking; all's good." Bruce crawls onto the carpet next to the bed and yanks the blanket down over him, then twirls in it so it surrounds his body and face like a sleeping bag.

"Night Tony.

Tony watches Bruce for a minute then walks over to the bed and sits on it. "Hey, wait. Bruce."

"Hm?" Bruce hums from under the blanket.

"You're not gay, right?" Tony asks. Bruce pops his head out of the sheet.

That's a weird question, he thinks. Weirdly, he replies, "Last I checked, no."

Tony cracks his neck to the side and massages it with his hand. "Alright, so it's not like it'd be awkward if we just shared a bed or anything. Unless it, like bugs you."

"Bed's for two very thin people or one fat guy. It might be a bit tight."

"Whatever. Just saying, since it's your house and all and there's no reason you should have to break your back bunking on the floor." Then he adds, "Oh, wait. Is it because I am a guy? Oh god, are you one of those insanely annoying guys who are so macho and insecure about their masculinity that they can't even—?"

Bruce lugs himself up, still submerged in blanket, and collapses on the bed next to Tony. Bruce rolls over so his back is facing Tony. "Just saying, I'm a little spoon."

Tony rolls his eyes and slaps the back Bruce's head before they work for five solid minutes unraveling Bruce from the blanket and get into place back-to-back with each other. Bruce reaches over and flickers off the fan. "Night Tony."

"Night Bruce."

Halfway through the night, which is actually afternoon, lazy sunlight streaking the room, Tony dazes up, nudges Bruce's shoulder. "Hey, Bruce…" His voice is slurred a bit, but Bruce catches his idea anyhow and turns around so they're facing each other. "Yeah," Bruce says and buries his head in Tony's chest, fuzzy senses registering only warmth. Tony drapes an arm over his shoulder and snakes another up the back of his neck so it rests in his hair. "Mmh, thanks, f' everything... " Tony murmurs and Bruce replies 'welcome.'

They fall back asleep.


	6. Tolstoy Effect

**Word Count (this chapter):** approx. 3900

**A/N:** This took far too long to post! I've been preoccupied with school, soccer, and broken bones as per usual and this fic had kind of just taken the back seat! However, I am back with 1/2 of chapter 7 done and the next three or so plotted out so hopefully my next updates won't be so sparing!

-**Chapter 6: Tolstoy Effect **- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It all got worse when they figured out he was adopted.

Not Loki.

Thor.

It all got worse when Loki figured out Thor was adopted.

* * *

Tony wakes up around dinner time. Bruce is still asleep, blankets twined around him, and Tony figures Bruce must toss and turn a lot in his sleep considering the guy was actually in Tony's chest when Tony woke up. And sure, Tony may not care bedding with his bro, but there is a line where bromance goes too far, and for him, cuddling is it. Still, he is glad he woke up first. Bruce probably would have had a panic attack if he woke up in his arms and thought he was making Tony uncomfortable. Tony used to think Bruce was low-maintenance and relaxed, but his stress last night was practically palpable. It's always the quiet ones, Tony thinks. His mom had been the same way.

Tony fixes himself a cup of coffee and scraps whatever leftovers in the fridge. Bruce comes out ten minutes later while he is eating.

"Hey."

Tony turns around, "Hey—" and stops. Bruce is wearing loose pajama bottoms that sag at the hip and no shirt, his chest sporting the faintest lines of a six-pack. Tony had figured Bruce was just lanky; he hadn't ever pinned him for athletic. Does Bruce play sports? His arms have definition, too. "Muscle-man," Tony points out.

Bruce is confused a second, then laughs. "Right. It's just because I do karate and jog everywhere since neither my mom is always working."

"Karate? But you seem so… pacifistic. Don't the classes cost a lot at the dojo?" Howard had tried to sign Tony up when he was ten, but it ran the same time as robotics club after school, and Tony hated the idea of fighting other people anyway. Everyone should just get along, little Tony had said, and Howard had replied that the classes were for when they didn't. Tony still never took them.

"My mom's friends with the owner, and I am friends with the owner's daughter. Romanoff," Bruce says.

"Natasha, right? I think she's in my Progressive Lit. class."

"Yeah. I get free classes there as long as I tutor her in Biology."

"Not a bad deal."

"No it is not," Bruce agrees. "But Natasha can be a little—" He looks at the plate of food Tony had laid out. "Oh, jesus. Sorry all our food sucks. My mom rushed to the store to stock it, but our standard of a stocked fridge is pretty terrible."

Tony shrugs. "I'm on you two's hospitality, so I won't be complaining." He yawns. Bruce catches the motion and yawns himself, stretching his arms and cracking his back.

"My sleep schedule's all messed up now."

"Dude," Tony starts, "you're whole _sleep_ is messed up. When I woke up, you were clinging to me, nuzzled in my chest like a girl."

"Objection," Bruce replies immediately. "I was nuzzled into your chest like a _man. _Also, was I really? That is insanely embarrassing." Tony looks at Bruce and can tell he feels more worried than humiliated. What's Bruce afraid of? That Tony isn't gonna like him anymore?

"No, it was pretty effeminate, I'm sure." Then after a second, "But don't worry about it. I mean I was facing you too, so we're both at fault here."

"Yes. The terrible fault of a bromance going too far."

"It's like a bad movie plot: Bromance: the friendship that kept going."

"And by going, of course, you mean right up the ass. Total anal annihilation. _Anal_hilation."

Tony chokes a laugh. "Oh my god Bruce, you can't just say that!"

"What? Gay anal penetration? Does that… bother you?" Bruce asks with fake mischievousness. They are playing a game, now.

Tony matches the glint in Bruce's eyes. "No, but I am sure all forms of penetration are foreign too you."

"Well, I'd hope the penetration would be foreign. If not, you're just playing with yourself, and that's no fun."

Are bros even allowed to make masturbation jokes? And how innocent really is Bruce with all this? "Hey, Bruce. You mind me asking you some questions, friend-to-friend, heart-to-significantly-stronger-heart?"

"That last joke was _awful_, but ask away," Bruce pulls up a seat and sits across from him.

"Are you still a virgin?" Tony asks unabashedly.

"I am sixteen, so yes."

"Have you dated anyone?"

"Like four people, yeah."

"Kissed?"

"Yes."

"Made out?"

There's a tiny smile on Bruce's face. "Once."

"With anyone now?"

"No."

"Want to be?"

"Sure."

"With who, then?"

"Don't care. Someone I wouldn't ruin too badly. Someone I deserve, so probably not anyone too amazing."

Tony wants to say something, but doesn't want to chance saying the wrong thing.

"First kiss?" he asks instead.

Bruce starts to answer then stops, looks up at the ceiling and counts something on his fingers. "Ah, yes. Eric Kripke."

Tony stops. "Your first kiss. Was _Erica Kripke_? She wouldn't even _look_ at me last year, and believe me, I tried. She is seriously hot, nice going, dude." Tony pats Bruce's back. Bruce smiles, but shrugs out of the touch.

"Erica is insanely good looking, but not my first. She was way out of my league. Still is, probably. Her not-so-identical twin brother, Eric was mine." Bruce really doesn't like the memory. It's stupid, and Eric was a terrible kisser. Tony's mouth opens an inch and his eyebrows pop up.

"A guy?"

"Hm?"

"Your first kiss was a guy."

"Yeah."

Tony tries to think of something to say.

"Oh."

Tony is a freaking genius. Word-wizard, Mr. A-to-Z right here. Shakespeare is rolling over in his grave.

"So you are gay?" Tony attempts. "Despite what you said last night? Well, morning, I guess I mean."

"What? No, Jesus, no. Well, probably not, at least. Eric was my best friend back then, and he got his first girlfriend, and didn't know how to kiss. I didn't either, and I was kinda curious back then after getting worked up over seeing this very inappropriate men's wrestling match, so we just kind of tested it out, and, well, you know how in the movies they kiss and fireworks go off? For us, it was like someone rubbing two sticks together. In the same direction. No. Fun."

"Oh, well that's good," Tony says. "I mean, I wouldn't have cared if you were… that, but it would have made bed-sharing uncomfortable, and I'd be worried you would start liking me."

"Tony, being gay doesn't mean you _have _to—"

"No, but being attracted to men means there's a chance. I would feel the same way I do around a girl that is straight or bi or whatever. There's always a _chance_ if the sexualities line up, slim as it may be, and the chance always makes it hard for me to really open up to them, because then if I do and they start liking me, and I don't like them back—which I wont; I don't date—then I will have to tell them and probably lose them as a friend, too."

"You sound like you've done that before."

"Her name was Pepper. Best friend in the world last year, showed me around New York and the high school since I moved from Cali. We were friends with benefits, she wanted more benefits, I couldn't do it. I loved her, but in the way you love a sister and just—now it's insanely awkward and we don't talk anymore, and I lost someone very important to me just like," he snaps his finger, "that."

"Pepper? She was in my science class. Wasn't she—" Bruce catches himself and stops. "Right. But, well, if I was gay, I would so not be gay for you," Bruce says. He grabs a piece of bread off Tony's plate. "I am more of a muscle-head jock kind of guy. You're far too nerdy."

Tony snorts. "Yeah, right. Well if I was queer, you, Bruce Banner, you would be_ exactly_ my type. I like brunettes," he says, and he ruffles Bruce's hair.

"Was your mom a brunette?" Bruce asks, ducking out of the grip. The playful smirk on Tony's mouth drops.

"I don't remember," he replies.

"Oh. Well I was just asking because people tend to go after people like their parents, or parent in your case, because I don't think you are masochistic enough to want to date a mini-Howard," Bruce jokes, but Tony is spaced out and replies late. "And I just totally ruined everything, oh god."

"No. You didn't. You are like her, actually. You have eyes like her, I mean. Brown, pretty. Caring about others' pain because they've been through a lot themselves." Bruce puts down the toast he was nipping, and looks at him. Eye-contact. Tony recoils. "Sorry if that was a little… "

"No, it's—" Bruce pushes his glasses into place and swallows. "Fine. Absolutely fine. Thank you."

"…You're blushing."

"What? I am not."

Tony pokes him in the chest, grinning. "Dude, you are _so_ blushing."

"Silence, peasant." Did Bruce just call him a peasant? "You are in my castle, you follow my rules. Rule one: the king of the castle does not blush."

"Is it because I said you have pwetty eyes?"

Bruce's [pwetty] eyes turn mock-menacing and he lunges. Him and Tony play chase through the interconnected rooms until they are tired and dive on the bed. Once on it, they wrestle a bit. Bruce takes the blanket and shoves Tony under it. Tony pulls him beneath the tarp, too. They tangle and twist each other in bedding, and it's idiotic and absolutely childish and Tony hasn't had this much fun in years.

Tony ends up on top, but only because Bruce lets him. Bruce, karate—the guy is a lot more muscular than any Stark is. Still, he's pinning Bruce down with a blanket and his elbows. "Concede, Bruce Tapestry!"

"It's Banner!" Bruce counters.

"Then I'll have your name changed," Tony says back.

"Oh, you wish!"

Bruce charges forward, and now Tony's trapped against the bed, head angling off the side. "My, your room looks splendid upside-down."

"Shut-up, Stark."

"Make me."

"That a flirtation or a threat?"

Tony just laughs. It's fun. It's simple. Non-stressing, and he bets this is the first time Bruce has felt this relaxed in a while, too.

(Tony is right with that conjecture.)

* * *

Years earlier. When you're family, it's easy to forget what family means. Strong, unbreakable bond—you can't change your blood. If there is faith or predestination or a plan, family is surely way of proving it. A constant, always the same, usually. And then there is the unusual.

Tolstoy began his novel _Anna Karenina _by saying _"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."_ Loki wasn't a genius, but he could understand the quote, even at age eleven when Thor decided they needed to go on a classical literature binge and picked up every translation on _Don Quixote_ and _Anna Karenina_ he could find. Thor, of course, became way too invested in the former. Loki invested in the latter. How glad he was that his family was one of the happy ones.

So, naturally, Loki's world collapses when Odinson casually, very casually, reveals Thor isn't blood.

It's at a doctor's office; Thor broke an arm at highly-intensive, hardcore bullshit of an eleven-year-old football practice, and as Mr. Odinson is filling out the papers, the nurse asks about his relation to the patient. Loki hears the answer; Thor doesn't.

"Well, neither me nor my wife are Thor's," the next word is whispered, "birth parents, but we have complete custody and are his legal guardians, and have since he was one."

The nurse just nods then helped Thor to the X-ray room with a big smile as though she hasn't just devastated Loki's everything.

See, because Thor isn't the only one who takes books too seriously. Loki didn't want an Anna Karenina family. He wants to be happy; he wants his family to be happy.

Loki never gets what he wants.

* * *

Tony's back in school two days later. He takes the school bus for the first time with Bruce. You have to wake up at five in the _morning_, he learns, but Bruce's house is one of the first stops, so they get to sit on the bus for an hour talking and sharing earbuds and songs between Tony's iPod and Bruce's mp3 player. Bruce has a playlist called 'Terrible Music,' which consists of the most atrocious rap, pop, and hipster attempts at progressive rock Tony has ever heard. He looks at Bruce intensely and whispers deadpan-serious that they needed to dissemble these artists before they mate.

The day drips by laxly. Tony had finished most his make-up work in recovery and at Bruce's, and now is only left with a few quizzes and tests to make up. He keeps an eye out for Loki. Telling Steve his biggest secret, Tony is still furious. But gym class is last period and Loki isn't in it. Thor and Mr. Odinson are missing also. Tony asks if Bruce knows where they are, and Bruce tells him to ask Steve. Steve, however, ducks away from his glance with something when Tony accosts him. It takes him a second to identify it.

Pity. Steve is avoiding him because pity. Steve Captain-A-fucking-merica is _not_ allowed to _pity_ him. He is _Tony Stark_, for fuck's sake! Bruce picks up on Tony's anger, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Steve," Bruce asks, keeping his hand in place. "You see any of the Odinsons anywhere today?"

Steve seems to have an easier time talking to Bruce. His eyes still look everywhere but Tony's direction. "Uh, family outing. Like, that's what Thor said at least. Loki wasn't answering my texts."

"Oh," Bruce says. Tony scoffs.

"Doesn't Loki always say he isn't Thor's family?"

"It's kinda complicated from what I get. I'd ask them, but whenever I do Loki looks like he's going to knife me and Thor just gets really—" Steve meets Tony's eye, which is apparently a mistake because he immediately shies away "—upset and weird. Speaking of… weird, how's your… thing? That happened," he says awkwardly to Tony, that it's practically unfair and annoying, and Tony just wants Steve to treat him normal.

"Thing. That happened. Right." Then again, if Tony can't punch Loki out today, Steve may do. "None of your business," Tony spits.

"I just want to help," Steve says, wiping a bit of imaginary saliva off his cheek. "No need to spit at me."

"Don't flatter yourself. I wouldn't want my spit getting contaminated," Tony says. He turns away and starts to ask Bruce something, when Steve grabs his shoulder and whirls him back around. The touch is notably harsh.

"Okay, you know what, Tony? I really don't see your problem with me," Steve forces through his teeth. His voice is quiet, but it feels like he is screaming. "Because I have done nothing but try to be nice to you and even now, after you've gone through hell and back, and I just want to say sorry and know how you're okay, and you won't even give me that!"

Bruce sends Tony a signal that says 'Leave it alone.' Tony appreciates the gesture, but ignores it. He steps away from Bruce, towards Steve.

"Well, for one, you dress like you're from the 18th century and your biceps—those are the muscles in your arms, if you didn't know—weigh more than your brain. Really, a pretty face and some fake 'niceness,' take that away and what are you?"

Steve gapes. "Are you joking? I am not taking this. Not from you. Not when everything special about you came from your father!"

That's it. Tony smiles, arches his arm back and—

The speed at which Bruce grabs his arm is lightening. His grip is more like iron. Tony is fuming; he's surprised Bruce's hand isn't smoking where it's holding his arm. "Let's all relax here, alright?" Bruce says.

"Yeah. _Relax,_ Tony," Steve says. It's mean. Steve is being mean but he thinks he has earned the right to not care for a class. "Do what your boyfriend tells you."

"One, despite popular belief, my boyfriend is Matt Damon, not Bruce, and, two, I think you need to relax before your panties ride any further up your ass." Tony tugs on Bruce's grip. Bruce doesn't falter. "Princess."

Steve bites his lip. "Okay. Okay, fine. I—me? I am _done_ with this!" And he throws his arms up stomps out. "You win you _ass_." And he just walks out of the gym just as the substitute comes fumbling in with a clipboard overflowing with papers. She peaks over it, messy hair and big glasses skewed, and asks befuzzled, "Are you guys, just, allowed to do that?"

"He… had a pass for the nurse's office?" Bruce says slowly, and Tony calms himself enough to attest.

"Alrighty then," teacher says, not believing a word. "This week we're doing Yoga!"

The teacher stays for the five days; the Odinsons are gone for a week. Bruce manages to waylay any Steve-Tony scuffles, mostly because he is stronger than Tony and able to make Steve feel guilty enough to not want to fight anymore by bringing up who it was that made Tony relapse. Bruce tries to word Tony out of it too, explaining that Tony can't extort himself by fighting during recovery, and that Steve isn't worth it (though, Bruce never thinks physical violence is 'worth it'), that Tony shouldn't let small things bug him, and Bruce fails miserably each time. It's on Friday when they're on the bus home that Bruce actually manages to get something akin to reason out of Tony.

"Bruce. Listen, I know all your pep-talking is for my greater good, and I am surprised you haven't flipped out on me yet for how stubborn I am being—" Bruce is surprised on that, too, "—but if you make the 'don't sweat the small stuff' argument one more time, I am going to rip my hair out."

"That would be a good thing. You'd finally get rid of this nasty thing." Bruce glides the back of his nubby fingernails along Tony's stubble. They lingers a second too long before returning back to Bruce's knee. "But seriously, you _shouldn't_ worry about things that aren't true and won't matter in a week. It's… I have a lot of problems myself, and that is a huge one of them."

"No, Bruce, your problem is that you have a high-level anxiety disorder and don't want to burden your mom by telling her about it, so it goes untreated, which only makes it worse and worse. At least that's what I've gathered from this week with you. _My_ problem is that I have America's Sunshine telling me I'm only special because my piss-poor excuse of a father."

Tony says the first sentences like a throw-away, but Bruce hears it the same. How does Tony know? Bruce wants to ask him, but right now it's Tony's who needs attention. "Which wouldn't bug you if you thought it was a total lie." Tony purses his lips and looks out the window. Bruce sighs. "And it is a total lie." A beat. "But you don't think so?"

"I think that because of who I am, I have more opportunities to be special than anyone else. Let's be fair, you're just as smart as me. Smarter at some things, but you probably would have gone through hell and three ways back to get through college and to get a good job, or wouldn't have gone at all despite your brilliance because society sucks like that. No matter who I was, stupid, smart, I would still have a high-paying job, an important job, and the best education money can buy just because my family can afford it. It's just a bit upsetting, alright? I'll never know if I have what it takes to make it from the ground up. I'm already on a pedestal." Tony breathe in and exhales. "But, I can't feel bad about it, obviously, because people who are on the ground have it a million times worse. So when Steve says I'm only unique because my dad, I can't exactly counter the argument."

Bruce looks at him, tilts Tony's head towards him with his hands so Tony is looking back. "Tony Stark. You are absolutely _brilliant, _and just because people have it worse, it doesn't mean your problems aren't as important." When Bruce's mom had been suffering from depression after having him premarital, she had never told him about it because she worked on people every day with heart conditions or who were starving and really needed help. She thought she could just stop being sad, but she couldn't. It's why Dad left. "Steve has no idea what he's talking about. Money can't buy intelligence, and it sure can't buy the innovation Tony fucking Stark can basically pull out of his ass." Tony smiles but shakes his head. Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder. "Really, Tony. I'm not lying."

"But still, it's obnoxious for a rich person to complain."

"Money doesn't buy happiness."

"Clearly, you've never seen what type of lab equipment a forty million dollar grant can get you."

Bruce laughs.

He laughs a lot and maybe it's so Tony will laugh to. He does join in after a second, and, once Bruce calms himself to giggling, he looks at Tony smiling wide and is suddenly _aware._ Aware of how the way they're sitting mashes their thighs together and that he can feel Tony's body heat through the fabrics of their shirts; aware his heart is beating a step too fast and that he laughs a little bit too long; aware that Tony's grin makes him forget the hiss of bus and car that usually drive him mad. Aware the tone of his voice is now hints with nervousness.. "Clearly, you need to take me to Stark Mansion."

"Yes, right after my stay at Banner Manor is done,"Tony says.

The bus pulls to a stop and they get off. Bruce is carrying Tony's books because their geometry teacher smashed them today, and Tony isn't allowed any lifting over ten pounds, and their Geometry book must weigh a thousand. "Please, _please_, never call it 'Banner Manor' again. My mom calls it that," Bruce despairs.

Tony laughs. "Seriously? Oh my god, she totally would." It makes Bruce want to laugh too, but he keeps himself to a smile that doesn't falter even a quark until they're back in the apartment. Around Tony, he honestly can't stop smiling. They step in the apartment.

Bruce stops smiling.

Bruce's mom is on the floor in a pile of vomit. He drops his books and runs to her.

"Mom?!"

No answer.


	7. Pillboxes Are Magic

**A/N: **Are you saying I am actually capable of updating more than once a month? Blasphemy! Though, seriously. Shorter chapter than the others. Heavy focus on the Tony/Bruce interaction. Enjoy!

-**Chapter 7: Pillboxes and Magic **- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bruce feels like puking. Tony sprints outside to the bathroom and does. The look on Bruce's face. It reminds Tony of how he looked in the mirror of the hospital bathroom an hour after his mom died. He had been trying to wash away the dark circles from under his eyes. He and his dad had hadn't slept at all her last few days. Tony takes a deep breath and swallows down the taste of throw-up—Bruce needs him right now, and he doesn't spend more than a minute in the stall before dashing back. He flings Bruce's door open. Ms. Banner is standing wobbly, an arm over her Bruce's shoulders. Her other hand is on her forehead. "Hey Tony…" she starts.

She's okay. Bruce's mom is _okay_.

"Hi, Miss Banner," he replies slowly.

"Mom, save your voice," Bruce says. "We don't know if there's something acidic in your throat talking could make worse."

"Didn't swallow nothing acidic," she murmurs. Bruce lays her on the couch. Tony goes to the kitchen to get something to wash out his mouth and calls the cleaners to clear Ms. Banner's mess off the carpet.

Tony walks back in. "Carpet cleaners will be here in twenty. We should get her to a doctor."

"I am a doctor," Ms. Banner asserts from the couch, her hand hanging in the hair and pointing. "I could do open heart surgery on myself." Her voice is weak and crackling. Tony hates the voice.

"I can get a doctor to make a house call since none of us can drive," Tony says. "And the cabs would be stuck in traffic at 4pm."

"Wouldn't the doctor, too?" Bruce asks nervously. He's holding his mother's hand between both his. Whatever his mom has, Bruce isn't afraid of catching it. Tony understands him completely. "_Well, if Mommy has to get surgery, I want it too!"_ No kid wants their parent to die.

Later, the carpet is cleaned and the doctor asks Bruce and Tony to leave her alone while she examines Ms. Banner. Michelle is one of the few doctors Tony can trusts (Michelle and Bruce's mom currently comprise the list.) She was his mom's doctor when she had first gotten ill, but was later dropped in favor of a more 'qualified' doctor. Tony always wondered how things might have been if they'd just kept Michelle.

Bruce is sitting on the bed with his face in his hands. Tony sits next to him. "You alright?"

Their thighs touch. Tony puts a hand on his back. "I will be. I need to relax."

"Can I help?"

"Probably not."

"If you had pills for anxiety, they could help."

"I don't need pills, Tony." Bruce shrugs away his arm.

"Your mom takes ones for depression," Tony says, folding his hands together. Bruce looks at him quizzically. "They're in the drawer on top of the microwave, behind the paper plates. Remember when I made pizza bagels a few nights ago and was looking everywhere for something recyclable to serve them on?"

"My mom's different." Tony turns to him. Bruce looks away. "It's a little weird, though." He stops like he's trying to find the right words. "Not my mom, I mean. You. Like, you're—you're finding out everything about me, I guess."

"And you're not with me?" Tony asks?

They look at each other.

"Am I?"

"More than most people have. Even Howard's noticed it." He shrugs. He and Bruce haven't broken eye-contact.

"You shouldn't call your dad Howard," Bruce says.

"You should take something for anxiety."

"I'm not anxious."

"I can feel it vicariously, Bruce. It's starting to affect me. Really, my left hand has just started twitching and making phone calls to long distance relatives it hasn't seen in six years to makes sure they are okay."

Bruce looks away and laughs. Tony smiles. "Oh god, Tony, I've actually _done_ that before."

"No."

"Yes!"

"Oh my god. This is a serious issue and all, but Bruce. Seriously?"

"I kid you not."

"Well that settles it. When you start sharing symptoms with Tony Stark's body parts, you know you have an issue."

Bruce looks at him and guffaws. "_What?_"

"I am attempting to cheer you up. Give me some credit!"

"Well, there was certainly an attempt," Bruce says, smiling and adjusting his glasses.

Tony makes a skunk-face and leans into Bruce's shoulder. "Shut up, Banner."

"Never."

"Rude."

They just giggle for a bit, lie back in the bed and count the dots on the ceiling together and give up after twenty-seven.

"You're mom's gonna be fine though. It's stomach-bug season, she probably just got a really nasty one."

"Yeah, probably," Bruce replies, and Tony can tell he really believes that. Then Tony can't stop grinning because making Bruce feel that relaxed is just… amazing. A huge surge of confidence and warmth that may or may not be also from where their hips and arms are brushing together on the bed. Bruce points to the ceiling. "Twenty-eight."

"Oh God no."

It is just a stomach bug. The doctor says she had a minor allergic reaction to a nausea pill she'd taken, hence the throw-up. The feeble voice and body is just a result of the bug she had caught. "It is absolutely nothing to worry about, but if you are worried, call me any time," Michelle says, smiles at them, then is on her way. Nothing to worry about. When she says it, Tony looks over at Bruce to see his reaction.

The relief on Banner's face is toxic. "Thank you!" Bruce says and waves as the doctor leaves. Tony can't stop grinning. Bruce closes the door after the doctor and turns around. He fist-bumps the air and runs up to Tony and they hug each other until they can stop smiling.

Bruce's mom can't work. That's a given. She is to stay in bed for the next two weeks or until two days after her fever breaks and the nausea stops. Being sick, she wouldn't have been able to volunteer at the hospital stands or waitress with food anyway. "Still, I want to work," she says.

"Well, you can't," Bruce replies. He and Tony are in the kitchen. Tony's melting cheese and tomato sauce on bagels, and Bruce is making soup for his mom. "So enjoy the time off."

"People are dying without me."

"Someone else will fill your spot. Everyone gets sick."

"Some worse than others," she adds. Tony spreads the paste on a bagel a bit too harshly. Bruce grabs his hand until he calms down. "I need to get better," she finishes.

"I agree," Bruce says. "So lie down and get working on it." Reluctantly, Ms. Banner does. With the couch taken by his mom, Bruce's bedroom becomes the new living space. Tony brings the food to it while Bruce feeds his mom soup. Later, they sit on the bed and eat while and watch Saturday Night Live clips on Bruce's laptop. "Want to go for a walk?" Bruce asks in-between skits.

"To where?"

"Not _to_ anywhere."

"Just walking?"

"It's a nice night and being all sedentary is probably bumming you out a bit." Bruce can see it. The air of fatigue Tony gets at seeing his mom sick. Tony's probably imagining his own mom. Bruce figures a walk outside would give them both some much-needed stress release. "Tony?"

He blinks. "Yeah, um. Sure."

"Are you okay? You just spaced out for a sec."

"I am fine, I just—never mind. Are you sure we should leave your mom here? Alone? What if something happens?"

Oh. Bruce hadn't thought about that. Jesus, what if something does happen? She could die. She is probably going to die, and Bruce is going to have no one again just like when his dad left. Bruce realizes he is thinking psychotically and scrunches his eyes together, shutting them and trying to will away the thoughts. Tony is looking elsewhere, probably engaged some internal warfare of his own. Bruce tries deep breathing; he feels like Tony asked the question hours ago. It's too late to respond; responding would be weird at this point. Bruce is so weird.

_Tony doesn't usually think you are weird, though. _The job of a scientist is to analyze data and draw conclusions. Based on most all their interactions, Tony really doesn't see anything strange about him. Not in a negative sense, at least. Bruce finds his voice. "Nothing is going to happen. She is asleep and on her side so if she did puke she wouldn't risk drowning in it, which she won't anyway because the doctor gave her something to calm her stomach that's worked for the past few hours. It's just a cold, Tony."

Bruce wonders if by comforting Tony he is also comforting himself. Maybe seeing that someone else can get worried and inexplicably paranoid (though Tony is paranoid due to a traumatic event, whereas Bruce is nervous just because he is a _freak_) makes Bruce feel more normal. It definitely offers comfort.

"I just gave you a panic attack, didn't I?" Tony asks.

"What?"

"Did mean to. Sorry." Tony sounds genuinely distressed. "Really, I didn't mean to. Guess worry is contagious?"

Bruce stops and thinks. "The panic attacks are worse. That was more of just making me worry over something for a minute."

"So there are panic attacks."

"You knew that."

"Yes, but now you have admitted it, Bruce Banner, and that is step numero uno a la path-o de recover-ero."

"One," Bruce starts. The two of them creep past Ms. Banner to the coat hangers and dress. "That was the worst Spanish ever." Once dressed, Bruce opens the door and, Tony then he walks through it. The night air is crisp and chilly. They should have worn more layers. "Two, I know I have problems."

"But you don't want to fix them?"

"I'm a republican."

Tony deadpans. "No you're not."

"Okay I'm not. Probably a liberal or undecided." They make their way down the stairs. "Fixing them would be more problematic than the problems themselves."

There is police tape over the old door with bullet gapes in it. Tony takes a a sniff and says, "Meth lab. Someone must have been using the abandoned room as a base of operations."

"Not a very spacious place for a drug factory."

"Probably why they got caught."

"Yeah."

Bruce is happy for the subject change. They walk another ten minutes in quiet, the sounds and lights of the city loading their senses. Bruce sighs. This walk has always been his favorite when he's calm. When he's not, it's all screaming cars and blinding buzzes and adverts. With Tony it's nicer. Quieter even though he is still worried.

"Do you want to talk?" Tony asks after a while.

"Do you?"

"A little. Not with you though, not right now at least."

"Why not with me?"

"You can't get it, or you'll just tell me to go to someone else or take something." Bruce scoffs and continues, "I don't have _issues_. Not real ones."

Tony looks at the skylights. "Didn't you tell me just a while ago that all problems matter?"

"Different set of rules for people other than me."

"You're like a girl." Bruce looks at him. Tony explains, "Girls often think every other girl in the world is pretty other than themselves. You seem to think everyone else matter or is more important than yourself."

"I don't weight people on importance. I'm sixteen."

"Too smart for a sixteen year old."

"You, too, though."

"Right."

The way the buildings illuminate the sky makes it look like there are stars out.

"If it was physical, you wouldn't be doing this. If instead of grade-A anxiety, you had, let's say, cancer or broken bone, you wouldn't blink twice about heading to the doctor's."

"But it's not. It's a mental thing."

"Mental 'things' are still things, Bruce."

Tony can hear Bruce sigh.

"You can't die from a mental disorder."

"Externally, probably not." They walk a few more steps. "But I can't imagine you're very alive on the inside, either."

Bruce stops. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the side of a building. The Doppler of cars passing in waves. It was like being in a beach of asphalt and a sea of steel. "You don't get it."

"How?" Tony challenges. His voice is getting aggravated.

"Because you're not me, so you probably never will understand me." Not really, at least. Bruce notices his voice rising with Tony's and calms himself down. "That sounded like a depressed teenage girl, sorry."

Tony stands to the side of him, looking at the wind blow a lock of Bruce's hair in his eyelash. He licks his thumb and takes a step towards him. "Look at me."

Bruce does, and Tony grabs the strand with his thumb and pointer finger and yanks, ripping it out in an instant. Bruce cringes. "What the hell? Ow!"

"You have this one bit of hair that is flowing in the opposite way of all your others and getting in your eye, and it was driving me nuts."

Tony tosses the hair to the ground. The wind blows it away. Bruce feels his forehead and eyelash. It's bare, just skin and a bit of bangs the way Bruce likes it. He won't have to keep shaking his head to get that strand out of his eye anymore.

"Thanks, Tony."

"Don't see why you didn't yank it years ago."

"It never occurred to me," Bruce says honestly. Tony looks at him sideways.

"You're weird." Then smiles. "And I mean that as the highest compliment."

Bruce smiles, but it's bitter. "I'm honored."

There's a sigh and a gust of wind, and Tony sinks down until he's sitting on the pavement. He motions for Bruce to join him and he does. The night tints everything blue. Tony shuts his eyes. "Close your eyes, Bruce."

"What for?"

"Trust me."

Bruce trusts him. He shuts his eyes tightly. Tony opens an eye and peers at him.

"Close, not scrunch," Tony says. Bruce returns his gaze with a look reading 'Seriously?' and Tony responds, "My mom would have Howard to this when he got worked up. Deep breath and really close your eyes."

"Okay." Bruce takes a deep breath and droops his eyelids together. The world goes black. "Now what?"

"Listen to everything you hear, run your hands along the pavement and see how it feels."

His eyes shut, Bruce opens his ears. He hears the cars and people in the distance yelling, the sounds of New York. But after a minute, it starts to change. He hears a dad calling his wife asking how the baby is. There is a woman who's car broke down and a cab driver stopped his service to help her. Clank of someone dropping change in a bucket. Wind. Eventually, the sounds mesh together and Bruce is just on autopilot just listening.

"Don't forget to touch," Tony says.

It's ridiculous, but Bruce feels his fingertips along the sidewalk, rough edges and shapes like sandpaper, but the texture is soothing. Bruce never noticed how much you miss of your other senses when you spend too much time just looking. He moves his hand a bit until it hits something soft and cold. He palms the object, rubbing circles in its soft surface with his thumb and warming it. The object starts to shift. It flips over and laces with his hand, and it's entirely surreal. Bruce loses sense of time. Eventually, a weight on his shoulder snaps him back to consciousness, and Tony Stark fell asleep waiting for Bruce to calm down, holding his hand to help him along the way. Bruce doesn't want to wake him, but he has to. He nudges Tony up. Tony's first reaction is a grin.

"Other worldly, right?" he asks. Their fingers unlace.

"Thank you," Bruce says.

"Don't mention it."

They walk home.


	8. At Last

**Word count (this chapter):** approx. 3150

-**Chapter 8: At Last**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bruce knows he's doomed when he realizes Tony looks nice hogging the blankets in their bed. They had walked home peacefully, checked on Bruce's mom, gave her some water, then messed around on the laptop for a while before settling down to sleep. Tony went out before Bruce, and Bruce made the mistake of trying to steal some of the blankets back after he did. When Bruce grabbed the corner of the blanket, its silk slipped and he slid forward, his face just above Tony's closed eyes and lips. That's when he notices it.

Tony is attractive.

Rather, Tony is attractive to _Bruce_. Obviously Bruce knew Tony had something that pulled in girls if all Tony's bragging was anything to go by, but Bruce never felt the spark himself. Plus, he's never been one to like for looks. Not being a looker himself, he doesn't think he has any right to. Personality is far more appealing. And Tony has a _hot_ personality.

The line of stubble on his chin and soft curve of his eyelashes aren't bad either. Bruce pulls away to his side, trying to tug some blanket with him and failing. He briefly entertains the idea of having a sexuality crisis, but realizes he maybe shouldn't have based his entire analysis of dick on Eric Kripke. Eric Kripke and Tony aren't even in the same league. Neither is Bruce, though. Being sixteen and in high school, Bruce figures the crush will go away in a few weeks. Tony's a great friend. That's what makes him attractive and is, controversially, why Bruce can't touch him. Not that he would stand a chance anyway. Tony yawns and rolls over, twisting the blanket with him and putting and arm around Bruce from behind and pulling him into his chest. Bruce might think something of it if he hadn't seen Tony do the same thing to a pillow a few minutes earlier.

Still, Tony's warm behind him, and maybe Bruce can give himself a treat for just one night. It's nothing that won't be gone in the morning, anyway.

* * *

Tony wakes up on the floor. Not while falling to the floor, but, literally, wakes up and is simply on the hardwood floor.

"Morning wood?" Bruce asks, peeking down from the bed. Tony throws a pillow at him.

"How the hell did I fall?" he asks from the floor.

"Well, you were spooning me again in my sleep, so I decided to take the noble course of action of shoving the kid with a heart condition onto the cruel, unforgiving floor. You know, before anything out of hand could happen. Protect my virtue" Is Bruce allowed to say that now that he likes Tony? Bruce doesn't want to censor himself. He would have said that, boner for Tony or not. Definitely.

"Define 'virtue.' …And 'anything.'" Tony stands up from the floor, his back making a vicious crack. "Afraid I'd take advantage of you in your sleep?"

"I was more afraid you would asphyxiate me." Bruce rubs his eyes and grabs his glasses from the nightstand, smiling as he puts them on.

"Ooh, kinky," Tony remarks and hops on the bed, leaning against Bruce's shoulder and saying into his ear, "Speaking of kinky," Bruce ignores the brush of breath on his earlobe, "there much of a shower scene around here? The only cleaning I've had all week were after gym class."

"Me too, though." Bruce gets out of bed to put some distance between them and get dressed. "And, um, not really. They're still under renovation for the pot addict trying to grow hash in the stalls a few months ago. We've called the landlord, but he kind of just hissed at us."

"Like a snake?"

"He actually has a pet snake," Bruce says, pointing in the air and remembering meeting at the landlord's house when he and his mom were first looking for apartments. "Really long, light-yellow thing."

Tony presses his lips together and shakes his head. "Wouldn't want to miss rent here," he says. Tony looks along the stale walls with paint chipping in the corners. "Or maybe I would. This place is beat-up, Bruce. Dangerous. You shouldn't be living here; It's probably how your mom got sick. Bad drinking water or something."

Bruce picks up his clothes from the floor and folds them into a pile on his dresser. "Our tap is fine, and if it bugs you so much, buy us a house."

Tony's face lights up, and he wriggles his finger, making non-literal connections. "Yes, I think I could do that."

"Tony."

"No, really. We have enough money—"

"You're not buying me a house," Bruce says dismissively form his dresser.

"When's your birthday?" Tony continues, ignoring him.

"July twenty-go-screw-yourself."

"Size preference?"

"Six and a half inches, and if you buy us a house, I am burning it down," he says. "And _not_ taking the insurance." He combs his hair and waits for a strand to fall in his eye before remembering Tony got rid of it. He turns around and begs, "Tony, please do not buy us a house. I can't believe this is even a serious conversation."

"Bruce, please do not take anything I say seriously, ever. My dad would kill me if a hundred thousand just dropped from his account. I'm not _that_ spoiled."

Bruce sighs and then looks at Tony sideways. "Who said you're spoiled?"

Tony counts on his fingers. "One, two, three, everyone?"

"Rich doesn't mean spoiled."

"Oh come on, I have my own _labs_. Plural. And I am only, what? Sixteen?"

Bruce shakes his head. "But your labs are being used to invent things and help people. It's not like you're asking for five new cars or a diamond necklace every day."

Tony looks away with something devious and droll hinting on his face. "Well, I did want this hot red convertible for my succulent sixteen—"

"Succulent?" Bruce questions with a smile. Tony walks to the mirror above his dresser next to him and begins to get ready himself.

"Girls are sweet; boys are succulent, clearly." Tony waits a minute before continuing. "Listen, Bruce. I appreciate you acting like I'm a good person, and I suppose I'm not half bad, but I am selfish, and I am spoiled. It's part of what makes me me. Everyone has bad habits they have absolutely no desire to change whatsoever," he adds with a shrug.

"They do not—," Bruce starts, but Tony is already hopping out the bedroom, throwing on a new shirt and yelling to Bruce that he's making eggs.

Tony's an awful cook, and always has been. Howard did the cooking for the family. Then mom died and Howard doesn't cook anymore. He hires people for that. So Tony never learned to cook, and he really can't cook. He knows this, but Bruce's mom is moaning on the couch, and he wants to immediately distract him from it, and maybe veer off sensitive subjects in the process. Looking at the pan, he realizes he kept the stove on 'ignite' and rushes over to turn it down, figuring burning the house down might not be the best way to relieve Bruce's stress. The eggs, however, don't burn, and when Bruce does come out and Tony peeks through the door-less doorway to him, the first thing he does is check on his mom. How are you doing? Feeling better today? Can I do anything to help? Tony sighs. He remembers hospital visits every day after school. Sometimes skipping to spend more time with her. He also remembers that the past is the past and he needs to grow up.

He plops a plate of eggs and toast on the table just as Bruce walks into the kitchen, and beckons Bruce over. Bruce stares from Tony to the stove, bemused, flips his arms up no-questions-asked and sits down in front of the food.

"So what disaster is this?" he asks. Tony slaps the back of his head with the spatula. "Hardly sanitary!"

"It's eggs, and this thing was hardly clean to begin with."

"Our dishwasher never works," Bruce protests.

Tony rolls his eyes and sits across from him with a plate of his own, and he and Bruce glance at the food and then each other. "You first," Tony says.

Bruce glares at him, and Tony motions for him to try a bite. He pokes the fried egg with his fork before cutting off a bite and trying it. He chews slowly. The anticipation in the room is palpable. Bruce swallows. "Well, it wasn't lethal. Except for maybe how much salt is in it."

"Still a victory!" Tony proclaims and starts on his own. It's not bad, but not anything special either. After a few bites and forgetting to swallow his food first, Tony says, "You have to try the Greek breakfasts our chef makes. Divine."

"Really? I bet."

"Yeah, it's—" Tony stops and clutches his chest, face scrunching together, a jolting pain stabbing under his ribs. "Shit, shit!"

Bruce jerks up, throwing his fork down, and hurries to Tony's side, putting his arms on Tony's back. "Hey, hey!"

Tony breathes heavy for a minute then shrugs him off. "I'm fine; I'm fine. Just ate too fast. Heartburn and all."

Bruce looks down at the eggs and says, "Or too much sodium. The doctors told you to avoid that. I'm such an idiot, I should have remembered—"

"Oh shut up Bruce Tapestry. You're not an idiot; you beat me out of top of the class freshmen year." Tony looks back at Bruce's hands still on his shoulder and back and smirks. "And you can get your hands off me anytime now." Tony hears Bruce sigh as he pulls his hands away. Tony looks at him defensively. "What? It's just heartburn. Happens to the best of us, and I am the best of everyone, so—"

"You been taking your medicine?" Bruce asks.

"Every-morning," Tony replies, tight-lipped. "You know that." He turns around in the chair so he's half-facing Bruce, putting a hand on Bruce's chest. Feeling the heartbeat. "Worry about your mom," he says after a minute. He pulls his hand off Bruce's chest. "Not me."

"Like that will happen," Bruce says but Tony doesn't hear it.

* * *

Two days later, Bruce watches Tony blazing through homework on the floor of his room, Bruce not-reading a book on his bed. The last few days, Bruce has spent a long time imagining what Pepper was like._ "She used to,"_ Tony'd said. Sadly. And not because he'd lost a lover, but because he'd lost a friend. For instance, what Bruce is. Lost a friend because they couldn't get over a crush on him. Tony Stark is lonely. Bruce can recognize it from the look in his eyes when two boys in the hall are joking with each other, shoving each other's shoulders and calling each other best friends. Bruce walks over and plops on the ground next to him.

"What we working on?"

"Calculus."

"Little advanced for a sophomore," Bruce says with a mocking grin.

Tony smiles.

* * *

"It okay if I bring a girl over? Feel free to tell me to fuck myself," Tony says two days later at school while they're walking down the hallway. Bruce sees Clint and Natasha in the hallway, and waves at them. They're too busy talking to each other to notice, or maybe they decided they hate Bruce or always did secretly behind his back. Bruce blinks away the thought and turns to Tony.

"Would you hate me if I said you're gonna have to just go to her house?"

"Vaguely. Not really though," he adds, grinning. Bruce looks at Tony smiling a minute too long. If Tony's mind doesn't end world hunger, his smile will. "So, I probably won't be going home tonight. Me and this cutie Peggy. Best part: I think Rogers has a crush on her."

"If Steve likes her, why would you stay the night with her?"

"To piss him off. Duh." They round the corner to their chemistry class. "Besides, they're not even dating or anything. She doesn't have to sleep with me, you know."

Tony walks ahead of him, and Bruce rolls his eyes, adding quietly, "Like anyone could resist."

"Hm?" Tony asks as they sit down, dropping their books in front of them. "Say something?"

Bruce catches his tongue. "Ah shit, no. Nothing." The teacher starts lecturing about something Bruce and Tony mastered ages ago, so he whispers to Tony, "I just don't think you should do it with her. You could really hurt Steve. And that girl."

"One: the entire goal is too hurt Steve, and, two: it's common knowledge Tony Stark doesn't do relationships. Pepper made sure to tell every girl in school I didn't… And what an ungrateful asshole I am, but I did entirely deserve it."

"Why's that? Because you didn't like her back?"

Tony bites his lip and pretends to copy something from the board like he actually needs to learn it.

"Tony?" Bruce presses. Tony glances at him, then looks away with stress and guilt drooping his features.

"Because I made her think I did." Bruce raises a brow and Tony takes a breath in. "I like the attention. When people are attracted to me, I flirt back just for the ego boost. I like knowing I'm someone's everything. Or, at least, that they really like my face and ass."

Right now, with his mom sick, Tony is Bruce's everything.

Tony scoffs at himself and shakes his head. "But, unfortunately, such behavior makes me pretty much untenable to be around. I'm a jackass to boys, and girls I can't keep my hands off."

"Sounds like you need to try putting your hands on a boy and being a jackass to a girl," Bruce quips. Tony shimmies into his shoulder and turns his head to whisper into Bruce's ear.

"How about I put my hands on you, Bruce Banner?"

Bruce shakes his head and pushes Tony away, ears tipping red. "Shut up—"

"Speaking of shutting up," their science teacher starts, and Tony and Bruce remain quiet for the rest of the period.

That night, Bruce receives a text from Tony.

_add another tally mark bruce tapestry!_  
_|| Tony 3-_

Bruce almost misses the signature change, but then doesn't.

At least, he figures, with Tony being with other people, it'll be easier for him to phase out of this phase. Bruce figures it will happen any time now.

* * *

A week later: still hasn't happened. What has happened, however, is everything. Bruce's mom healed and began work again; Tony's dad said fixes on Stark manor were almost done; Steve Rogers punched Tony Stark so hard in the face both Stark's eyes were black.

"I told you not to screw her," Bruce says. They are laying on Bruce's bed, Bruce holding a bag of frozen peas over Tony's eyes. Tony sighs.

"I know I probably should have listened to you, but the look on Roger's face was worth it."

"If I didn't step in, he would have killed you. And with your heart condition, that wouldn't have taken a lot," Bruce adds.

"Christ, what are you, my girlfriend?" Tony says. Bruce pushes the peas aggressively into his face. Tony flails his arms up to pull them off. "Too much cold too quick, gah! Ok, ok, I'm sorry, man." He rubs his eyes and Bruce can't help but notice just how puffed out they are. "I should have listened to you." Bruce reaches down and touches the purple bags, pulling them apart so Tony can do more than just squint for a minute. "Bruce?" he asks.

Bruce pulls his hand back abruptly, averting his eyes. "It's really swollen. My mom is gonna freak out when she gets home. Should we call your dad?" His words come out too quick. He almost stutters.

"Howard doesn't give a shit; don't waste your calling minutes on it. You people have limited minutes, right?" Tony asks.

"The company doesn't charge us anymore, remember? And what was that about 'us' people?"

"You know, Welfare-checkers? Slumdogs?" Tony whispers the last one as though it is a swear: "_Food-stampees?_" Bruce picks up the bag of peas menacingly. Tony puts his fingers up in an 'X' over his face. "Sanctuary! Come on, show some mercy. Beggars can't be beaters!"

"That's it," Bruce says and jumps him. They're wrestling again because hell if two black eyes or anything could ever dream to stop Tony Stark. But maybe they can slow him down because this time Bruce gets Tony pinned to on the floor, his arms over his head and Bruce laughing into his chest. "You have no upper body strength, dude."

"Shut up."

"Did you seriously think Steve wouldn't beat the shit out of you? You are a walking stick. Really thin. Sexy and all, sure, but—" Tony lunges. Bruce gives in and lets Tony put him back. They roll over a few times, vying for dominance, and then Bruce's leg brushes against Tony's crotch. Bruce is suddenly hyper-aware of every spot Tony's body is touching his. He realizes he is probably the worst crush-haver ever, as he sometimes forgets he even likes Tony like that at all.

Bruce wriggles out from under him and calls time-out to use the bathroom, where he just sits for a while and washes his face with cold water. He checks and isn't hard, which is a good thing given he's only had time to jack off the night Tony was out with Peggy since Tony moved in. His tolerance for boners must be improving. Bruce realizes how inane that sentence , and his whole situation, really is. In love with one of the richest, hottest kids on the planet. He looks himself in the mirror. Really hates all his features. His cheeks are too fat and his nose doesn't line up with his eyes. He clears his head and turns away from the reflection and walks back out. Tony's sitting on the bed and from his face Bruce can tell immediately that something's wrong.

"Tony, what is it?"

Tony's cell phone is held limply in his hand and Tony looks at him. "Dad's outside. Repairs were finished early. He wants my shit and me packed and ready to go in a half hour." Then Tony's phone buzzes again and he adds, "And he does not want to hear 'any shit about it.'"

Bruce tries to say something but can't. After a minute, he finds his tongue.

"I'll… help you pack."

"Alright."


End file.
